


Rose Potter -- The-Girl-Who-Lived

by josephina_x



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, girl!Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:34:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://nicnac918.livejournal.com/36970.html?thread=17258#t17258">I got challenged</a> at one point, so here she is: Rosemary Ann Potter, The-Girl-Who-Lived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nicnac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicnac/gifts).



> Disclaimer: Not for profit, and no infringement intended. For entertainment purposes only. This is a highly-derivative work, and small sections of dialogue from Book 1 are reproduced directly, but _only_ for the purposes of plot progression. Please go enjoy Ms. Rowling's books at the local library, or buy a copy and support her work.
> 
> (Seriously, just playin' around, yo. Chillax! ;)
> 
> *g*

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rose Potter sighed and curled up under her threadbare blanket on her shelf in the cupboard under the stairs.

She was a good-for-nothing layabout, but there was nothing that could be done about that but a bucketful of good hard work, applied consistently at scheduled times.

In the meantime, she was using her dim light from the electric bulb in her cupboard to read by.

She loved books -- she read every one she could get her hands on. Little girls should be seen, not heard, and reading kept her quiet and unfocused.

\--Unfocused had taken some practice, though. If she focused too hard, then the Freak Things happened. If she didn't focus enough, then her mind wandered and, well... whenever she was pulled from her reverie by the inevitable screaming, she tended to find out that the Freak Things had turned out even worse than usual.

She didn't like being a freak, and she didn't like being punished for things she couldn't really control. She wasn't even sure if it was her, really. Things just... _happened_ around her, and then Uncle Vernon blamed her for them. He usually grabbed her arms and shook her a bit while bellowing in her face, which was always scary, but after that one time with the school counselor visiting their home, he didn't slap her around again. --Pinched on the arms and a hard hairbrush to her behind, yes, but nothing too drastic that could be seen much or lasted too long. Apparently girls getting hit at Home was frowned upon at School.

Sometimes she wondered if the too-hard boxing of her ears had stopped because of school, or because they only ever seemed to make the Freak Things worse, not better. It always seemed to take longer to stop when she felt woozy and upset, but she didn't know if that had just been her own misperception or not. She was honestly too afraid to ask.

Aunt Petunia wasn't much better with the pinching or the insults, but once she'd found out that letting Rose read also included her reading any _cookbooks_ she could get her hands on, and Rose had turned out to be a fair hand at reproducing the treats and confectionary delights on those pages for her bridge group, her aunt had encouraged her a little bit in that regard.

...though Rose suspected that half the reason they brought her to the library sometimes was so that they could deny her doing more than looking at the books on the shelves as yet another punishment.

Rose never got any books of her own, and she never got to actually touch the cookbooks that belonged to Aunt Petuna, but she did get rather good at the art of smuggling school library books home and back again without anyone noticing.

Dudley and his friends mostly left her alone, being a girl and not worth their time, for which she felt more than lucky, seeing what usually happened to the other boys at school. She got pushed down into the dirt once or twice a day for years, but on the one horrifying afternoon that one of his friends suggested 'having a little fun with her', Dudley had gone green, then red, and then hauled off and nearly broken the little bastard's nose. Apparently diddling one's friend's cousin was off-limits, even if said cousin was a freak and a good-for-nothing layabout. They'd been pretty hands-off after that, even with the shoving bits. Apparently nobody wanted to see Dudley lose it on their face, or their shoes -- he'd looked pretty sick at the thought, first. He made derisive comments about her ugly, freakishly scarred face as often and as loudly as possible to anyone who would listen.

And so it came time for Dudley's birthday again, and while his was always celebrated like he was god's gift to mankind, Rose's own was, of course, going to be completely forgotten as usual, she knew.

And she was just supposed to be a good girl and help bake him his cake and watch him get all sorts of presents while she sat quietly off in the corner and didn't get in the way. This afternoon she was working on a skirt. (She would have loved to wear a pair of pants, but Aunt Petunia forbade it, on account of being on the road to juvenile delinquency when she should be trying to be femininely demure, quiet, and obedient. Aunt Petunia forever despaired at her inability to be even the least bit ladylike, which Rose seemed perfectly and completely incapable of, no matter how hard she tried. She had an odd feeling at times that it might have a bit to do with her rather unruly hair...)

At least her clothing wasn't too raggedy -- her aunt believed in little girls learning how to sew, and while Rose was always thoroughly berated for not being able to sew _properly_ and forever pricking her fingers on her needle and thread, she was at least allowed to wear what she screwed up. She didn't get new material, so her clothes tended to be a bit of a patchwork of old worn cloth, but never raggedy, and they generally fit rather well. --Not _too_ well, though, because that would be getting uppity and putting on airs above her station, which was a dangerous thing for a girl of dead good-for-nothing parents to do. They'd died n a car crash when she was little. (She'd been lucky to survive, if one called living with the Dursley's lucky. Or surviving.)

So when Dudley finished blowing out his candles, and eating all his cake that Rose was never allowed even the littlest piece of, and counting his presents and complaining about the number of them as he usually did, she was _very_ surprised to hear that she would be accompanying Dudley and his friends, as well as her aunt and uncle, to the zoo that afternoon.

She nervously piled into the car with them and snapped on her seatbelt, and she worried and worried and worried even more as the long car trip progressed. Trips never ended well when she came along. Freak Things almost always tended to happen. She didn't know why the Dursley's never seemed to notice or realize this and just pack her away in her cupboard before they left. She wouldn't have minded considerably -- being left alone to read being better than the alternative: getting pinched and shaken and yelled at for a Freak Thing. Unfortunately, her aunt and uncle refused to ever leave her alone in the house, and as it turned out, the person who she was supposed to have been shipped off with for the day couldn't take her, having broken their leg. (She spared a bit of a thought for the old woman. Her house might've always smelled a bit odd, and all the cat pictures were rather boring, but the tea was fine enough.)

Rose sighed and stared out the window as they drove by all the houses and then into the city. She grimaced and ignored Dudley when he pinched her -- he was rather put out at having to share any of his special day's events with her.

They got there without trouble, went and got their tickets in without trouble, and things were actually going rather well. Rose had just started to relax, when one of the rather large snakes in a rather large terranium started watching her.

Rose, not being particularly ladylike at all, was of course fascinated by all the not-so-slimy, cool and scaly-skinned lizardy things in the terranium, and so she walked up to the rail and stared right back.

And then her eyes widened when it said to her, "It isssss rude to sssstare, issss it not?"

"Well," Rose said, straightening a bit, then leaning forward and over a bit towards the creature, "I wouldn't know about _that_ , but you sstarted sstaring firsst, you know."

She heard a hissing sound like laughter. "Sssssso I did."

Rose grinned a bit.

"Do you like it in there?" she asked, curious, leaning down and putting her head on her arms. She stood hunched haphazardly over against the low rail with her feet splayed out to the sides in a half-split. She found the position to be quite comfortable, being none-too-ladylike at all.

It shook its head at her.

"I'd rather be in Brazil," it told her, flicking its head sideways.

She followed the movement and saw a plaque.

"Are you ssure?" she asked. "It ssays you've never been there. How do you know what it's like? It might be better here," she said after a bit of thought.

"It might be better _there_ ," the snake replied casually, swaying from side-to-side. "I'd rather have the adventure and ssssssee." It gave her a long look. "Wouldn't you?"

Rose frowned and thought for awhile. "I ssupposse I don't know," she said finally. "Adventuress can be troublessome. I've read a bit about them in bookss. They sseem to involve a bit more excitement than iss healthy for ssome." After all, lots of the people in her books tended to end up dead. And sure, Rose knew that they were just stories, but...

The snake hissed a quiet laugh at her, though somehow it didn't seem unkind. "Well, then. Leave the adventuressssss for the ressssst of usssss, then!"

Rose bit her lip to stifle a grin, and then was bowled over out of the blue.

She frowned upwards, fighting a snakelike hiss of her own as she slowly levered herself up on the skinned elbows and knees left from her encounter with the concrete floor. (Her skirt hadn't done much to protect her legs -- yet another reason why she really, _really_ wanted pants.)

She glared up at Dudley.

"Look, it's moving around!" he exclaimed, and for a moment Rose saw red. The terranium was huge -- he hadn't needed to shove her out of the way! Bloody hell, he could've even asked her to move and she would've! But no -- he'd needed to get in as bloody close as he could, as fast as he could, and what good did it do him, huh?

The red and black sparks across her vision coalesced and she felt a spike of white-hot rage flare through her.

And then Dudley was a hell of a lot closer than he had been before.

Rose watched wide-eyed from the floor as the snake escaped from the now-glassless enclosure, with a laughing hiss and a final tail wave at her. Everyone else panicked and ran. She supposed it might have to do with them not stopping long enough to chat and realize he was just out having a bit of fun.

"You know you're not going to get very far!" she called after it. "The zookeeper'll jusst catch up with you again!"

"Ah, but it sssssshall be fun while it lassssstsssss!" she heard it faintly call back to her as it slipped out of the double doors exiting the exhibit.

"Dad!" Dudley exclaimed, pointing. "Dad! Rose was talking to it! Rose was talking to the snake!"

Rose froze, then looked up slowly, straight up.

Uncle Vernon was standing behind her, hands on his hips, glaring down at her, ruddy-faced.

Uh oh.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rose grumbled to herself as she finished scrubbing the floor of the kitchen on her hands and knees. It wasn't her bloody fault, after all. She was supposed to speak when spoken to. It was the ladylike thing to do. So what if it had been a snake that had started the conversation? It still would have been rude not to talk back.

She didn't bloody understand what the big deal was, really, but at this point she was bloody sure she was never going to understand this 'being a proper lady' business if they kept adding rules on her.

It would be so much easier if there was a book about this sort of thing. She'd read it cover to cover. But no -- all this 'speak until spoken to' business had all these extra little side rules and things that nobody ever bothered to mention, and so she had been stuck washing the car, and ironing all the laundry, and doing all the dishes, and reweeding the garden, and scrubbing at the bloody kitchen floor with a bloody toothbrush, and making dinner for her relatives--

She got tossed in her cupboard without supper, too. It made her bloody mad as hell.

Worse, Uncle Vernon turned off the electricity to her lightbulb before he locked her in. She was left in the dark for hours.

Bloody Dudley and his bloody birthday party. She hadn't even wanted to go along in the first place.

It wasn't fair.

~*~*~*~*~*~

When the first letter arrived and Uncle Vernon demanded it, she dutifully handed it over. She was a bit sore about it, but she didn't complain. (Out loud.)

She got the feeling later that they must've known that they were going to be bombarded with a huge number of the things -- why else would they have turned such horrid pasty colors when they'd seen the first one?

She got moved from the cupboard up into Dudley's second bedroom upstairs, which had been quite odd. She'd cleaned up a bit in short order, not wanting to live in filth nor buried under his old broken toys nor spiders -- she'd had a hard enough time keeping under-the-staircase free of them, and she wasn't about to start giving in her living quarters to them now! -- and the bed was marginally softer and a nice change. She marveled in how different it felt to lay stretched out all full-across an entire mattress, rather than scrunched up into a middling ball for hours on end.

But, oddly enough, the letters kept coming. Dudley commented once how someone really must want to get ahold of her, and she just shrugged. Frankly, she thought it was silly. Why send so many letters when her Uncle was just going to burn and shred them all? Why not just come in person, or ring them up on the telephone? That would be far more difficult to ignore.

Rose really dreaded to think of the cost in paper and ink and wax, honestly.

When the letterstorm happened in the living room, she stared from her corner in shock, nearly dropping her sock-knitting, well out of the blast-radius.

One of the letters drifted down into her arms, and she stared at it owlishly.

She didn't bother to slit it open with a knitting needle and read it -- her Uncle obviously didn't want her getting into it.

Not once did she ask to read one of them. After all, little girls should not speak unless spoken to. She was only ten, not quite yet eleven, and her aunt and uncle certainly weren't speaking to her.

... _About_ her like she wasn't even in the room, yes, but to her? No.

They ended up going on vacation. Rose went with them.

She had an odd feeling about the whole thing, really, because while it felt like they were trying to escape, they were also taking her with them. What had been in the letter had obviously been bad enough to scare them, and they didn't want her reading it, so it must all be rather bad, but, well... she'd never seen them quite try and _protect_ her before. If this was what that was.

She couldn't think of what else it could possibly be, though, as she shivered under her thin blanket on the floor and stared at Dudley's watch, counting down the seconds to her birthday.

She sighed out softly as the second hand ticked over, then jumped at the loud 'BOOM'ing noise at the door.

It hadn't been thunder, despite the storm. Thunder didn't sound like--

'BOOM' 'SMASH'

And then the door fell in.

Rose stared up wide-eyed from the floor at the giant of a man standing in the doorway, feeling a good bit more afraid than she had been when she stared up the same way at the snake.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rose stared at the box full of cake in her hands dubiously.

She suddenly was very glad that the Dursleys didn't treat her like Dudley on her birthday, after all. She didn't think she could finish the whole thing like he could.

It was chocolate, too -- a bit too rich for her taste. She did better with vanilla.

She didn't even have a fork or knife. She wasn't quite sure how to show her appreciation without at least sliding a finger through the icing to taste, but she hadn't washed her hands lately and Aunt Petunia would surely have a fit. It was a kind thought the man had had for her, though.

She sighed down at the troublesome frosted confection.

Honestly, if anybody had asked, she'd found the words a bit more palatable than the cake.

_"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby. Yeh look a lot like yer mom, but yeh've got yer dad's eyes."_

He knew her.

He _knew_ her. And he'd known her parents.

She looked up at him.

"Who are you?" she asked.

After all, he had spoken to her first.

The giant man chuckled at her, then said, "True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

And while she was digesting that odd bit of knowledge, Hagrid sat down and made himself at home in that nasty old shack, boiling up some tea and sausages.

When he offered her some, Rose sighed a bit to herself and gave up. There was a time for table manners, and there was a time when all manners really meant was making other people feel comfortable as you took tea together.

Rose tried not to gobble down those sausages, mindful of her aunt standing behind her and her usually shrill tones, but they were the best she'd ever tasted, and she was near-put to starving from the measely chip or two she'd gotten from her bag of chips earlier.

Finally, when she was a bit more full, she carefully closed the lid on the cake and set aside the box, before saying, "I'm sorry, but I still don't know who you are."

It only went downhill from there.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"I'm a _what?_ "

"A witch, o'course, an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."

And this time, the front of her letter read 'Ms. R. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea.'

She took a breath and did not look behind her, but instead opened the letter under the giant man's steady gaze.

She asked about owls and all hell broke loose.

She learned about owls, and Muggles, and how her aunt had known she was a witch. She learned how her mother had been a witch, and her grandparents proud of her, and her dad a wizard. She learned how her mom met her dad, and how they died -- not a car crash after all, but an evil wizard called Voldemort. And, when all was said and done, she felt a bit ill.

She thought back to her conversation with the snake, and realized, _Oh, no wonder I'm not all wild-mad like everyone else over wanting an adventure or two. I've already had one, and it turned out just horrid._

Oh, and apparently it wasn't quite _done_ yet, because that evil wizard might still be out there, and...

"Hagrid, I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a witch."

"Not a witch, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?"

And at that, Rose felt a bit of disquiet. She thought back and realized that yes, in fact, every time a Freak Thing had happened, she'd felt a burst of white-hot anger and...

She solemnly looked up into Hagrid's beaming smile, but there must've been something in her expression.

"See? Rose Potter, not a witch -- you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts," he said, clapping a gigantic hand on her shoulder reassuringly, and much more gently than she would've expected.

And of course her uncle had had something to say about that, and Rose shivered at the roaring display that Hagrid gave when he lost his temper.

When Hagrid sheepishly told her that he'd gotten expelled and had his wand snapped in his third year, she wasn't too surprised at the idea, given his outburst just then.

His coat was nice and warm, though, even if it had dormice in it.

...Maybe she'd tell him in the morning that the best way to not get caught doing magic after the fact would probably be to undo the magic that he'd already done. If he seemed in a good-enough mood to broach the topic, that is.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anybody was wondering, bits of this story were also roughly inspired by [HPMOR](http://hpmor.com) and [this Harry-Snape fic](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4307359) [and sequel](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4437151/1/Harrys_New_Home) that Nicnac recommended to me awhile ago, [as well as one of Nicnac's own](http://archiveofourown.org/works/313379). *g* You should probably read all of these at one point or another -- I highly recommend! :)

~*~*~*~*~*~

When Rose woke the next morning to a tapping sound, it took her a bit of a moment to remember what had happened the night before.

She'd first thought it odd that her Aunt was tapping so persistently instead of giving up and sending her Uncle after her to pound on the cupboard door, until she realized that her blanket was a good bit much warmer than usual.

She opened her eyes and looked down at the coat. Hm. Not a dream, after all.

Well, not unless she was stark raving mad, anyway.

She blinked blearily up at the window, and realized that there was an owl out there. Remembering the explanation about owls hours before and the quick send off, she quickly let it in. After all, if it was a letter back from Hogwarts explaining how there'd been such a mistake with sending the letters to her, oughtn't they get it straightened out right away?

She shook herself awake all-at-once, got up, and pulled open the latch.

The bird nearly knocked her aside with a wing as it swooped in, dropped a large bundle of something on Hagrid's chest, and then landed on Hagrid's coat, attacking its pockets.

Rose crept closer and realized that the mail was just an oddly-named newspaper. She frowned down at the misbehaving bird.

"Shoo!" she told it quietly, shaking her hands at it, and nearly got her fingers snapped off for her trouble.

Bother. There was nothing else for it. "Mr. Hagrid, sir?" she said loudly, placing a hand on his shoulder very carefully. She hoped that she wouldn't have to try and shake him awake, he was so much bigger than she--

"Pay him," the giant rumbled sleepily into the sofa.

"What?"

"He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets."

...Well, at least she didn't have to pay it herself with money she didn't have. She finally managed to shoo the nasty little thing off to the side and searched through his coat pockets.

Unfortunately, she wasn't finding much of anything that looked like money. "What with, sir?" she asked.

"Hrn?"

"With what do I pay the bird, sir?"

"Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid, rolling over.

Rose let out a soft noise of frustration -- the bloody large giant of a man was no help at all! -- and proceeded to turn out all his coat pockets, one at a time. She didn't find any nuts, but the owl hopped forward and was eyeing a few small bronze-colored coins with the utmost interest.

She decided that this was the proper money, so she counted out five of them and watched as the owl held out its leg almost impatiently for her to place the coins in a pouch tied there.

"Sorry about all that, I'm new at this," she told it, but it really didn't seem to care one whit, one way or another. It flapped hard off the ground and shot out the window as soon as she'd finished getting it its due, as thought it had far more important places to be, and good riddance to the blasted thing. She counted herself lucky she'd gotten away without losing a digit or two.

Only after the thing had flown off did Hagrid finally rouse, yawning wide and stretching tall.

"Best be off, Rose, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff fer school," he said.

Rose counted herself lucky to have had so many lady-lessons from her Aunt, because she surely would have been sent sputtering at that announcement if she hadn't. Up to London? To buy things for school? With this strange man? Certainly, he claimed to have known her parents, and he seemed to know the names of her relatives, but while her Aunt had confirmed that her parents had been... less than normal, like her(!), neither her aunt nor her uncle had seemed to have had any notion of any of what Hagrid had said about this Voldemort character or her parent's deaths at all! Was Hagrid telling the truth about all of that? Was he really who he said he was? Could she actually trust him? He'd already admitted to using magic when he shouldn't, and he obviously had a temper about him.

Moreover, what would happen if he decided she was too much trouble and left her in the middle of the streets of London on this shopping trip he wanted to take her on? She'd never been to London before, and she didn't have the money on her to call a cab home -- nor phone their home on Privet Drive, not that the Dursley's would be there, being here, to come and pick her up. And they would pick her up if she called, grumbling and cursing and certainly grounding her after for the trouble, because they wouldn't do something like that to her -- they wouldn't just leave her someplace off in the middle of nowhere all unsafe, lost, and alone when they knew she was there. They'd never gone someplace, kicked her out of the car, and drove off to leave her there to fend for herself all on her own, either. It was a worry she'd honestly never had to contemplate before. Losing them was the trouble, not keeping them, and now... now she wasn't entirely sure she _wanted_ to lose them.

And while all that left her feeling a little scared and sick, what nearly sent her sputtering was the idea that Hagrid had decided for her that she'd be attending this school of witchcraft and wizardry. Didn't she have some choice in the matter? The letter had been addressed to _her_ , after all, but for all Hagrid's blustering talk about how her Uncle couldn't stop her from going if she wanted to, the giant of a man hadn't actually stopped to _ask her_ if she wanted to. Who was this man, to be making decisions like that for her? She got enough of that from the Dursleys as it was, but at least _they_ were family.

Besides, the letter had said that the owl was due July 31st -- that day, her birthday -- but the term was to begin on September 1st. So what was the all-fire rush to get her her supplies?

And how on earth was she going to pay for whatever was required? Her Uncle had said he wouldn't be, and he didn't lie about things like that. She didn't much like the idea of owing money to some odd giant of a man with a firey temper who didn't seem inclined to give her any real consideration either -- not at all.

It was like the chocolate cake -- a nice thought of course, but when it came down to it, it felt more like the _idea_ of doing something nice for someone, possibly out of obligation or social duty, rather than something really having been done specifically for _her_ , as a person.

Hagrid hadn't even given the pig's tail to the right person, in a sense -- her uncle had been the one angering him, but he'd turned on Dudley, instead, who'd really done nothing at all to the man. ...Certainly, Dudley deserved a little comeuppance for being such a nasty piggish brat all the time, but a magicked-on tail? It wasn't as though this man knew anything at all about that.

...Or at least, Rose thought he didn't. Those letters had been awfully specific about her sleeping location, though. She had the feeling that her uncle was probably right about one thing, at least -- if somebody knew enough about her to address her letters properly, each and every time something changed, then somebody must have known about her living arrangement in total. Which meant that somebody approved. A wizarding somebody, who had probably known her parents.

Which was a thoroughly disquieting thought.

Even more disquieting was the idea that said wizarding somebody was most likely this 'Minerva McGonagall' person, who was the _headmistress_ of the school that had sent all those letters, where this Hagrid person was employed.

It made her wonder what the school was really like, to have someone like that in charge.

...Then again, there was that Albus Dumbledore person as Headmaster. Maybe he was a bit better.

She thought all this through as she looked up at Hagrid under her eyelashes, staring without staring, and ate quietly with him while they broke their fast on cold sausages, tea, and the chocolate cake from much earlier that morning.

They finished up, and then Hagrid stood up, scooped up the things from his pockets that had been lying out out across the floor still, put on his coat, and said, "Got everythin'? Come on, then," without waiting for a reply.

Rose grimaced and hurried after him outside. "Mr. Hagrid--" she started, figuring that now might be the only chance she got to ask.

"Ah, not 'Mr.' or 'sir' or anythin' like that! Just Hagrid, Rose. Hagrid," he corrected her, glancing down at her with a furrowed brow.

"Ah, yes. Hagrid," she said. "I was thinking about what you said the night before, about your magic and not wanting to get caught out--"

She saw him stiffen and froze herself. "Ah, well, that is--" she stammered, then forged ahead blindly. "If you undid it, then if anybody came round after, they'd never know about it, right? It'd be your word against theirs, and they'd never admit to any freakish, I'm sure," she said in a rush.

Hagrid blinked down at her, still frowning. He turned and glanced back at the sad looking little shack. "...I suppose I could give tha' a try," he said slowly, drawing his umbrella. He waved it at the shack, then clambered into the boat that her Uncle had rowed over.

"...Did it work? Rose asked tentatively.

Hagrid just grunted. "Mebbe. Didn' really work out first time, did it?" he said, with a smile up to her.

Rose smiled weakly back. She was rather glad that he'd gotten the pig spell somewhat wrong, after all, given how much he seemed to like sausage...

He got in the boat, and she paused, but didn't argue with him. He was more than large enough -- and certainly strong enough, given the state of the shack door -- to force her to come with him if she said 'no', and she didn't want to find out first-hand if that just meant hauling her up over a shoulder, or something worse.

She tried to keep the frown off her face as Hagrid asked her permission(?) to do a bit of magic to not have to row himself, and let all her questions swim by through her head -- how he'd gotten there if not by boat, how the letters had known where she was, where exactly they were going, what she needed for school, how she was going to pay for whatever things she needed, why they had to go shopping that very same day.

She didn't voice any of them, of course -- speak not unless spoken to, after all, and she didn't want to anger the man by doing something un-ladylike. She didn't particularly like the prospect of ending up on the receiving end of a pig's tail, herself.

They sat in silence, the boat smoothly gliding through the lake, with only the occasional crackling movement of newspaper pages as Hagrid read his subscription -- 'The Daily Prophet', it seemed to be called. Rose squinted slightly at the front and back pages he was holding up between them, and blinked as she realized that some of the pictures seemed to be moving -- how absurd! Who would combine a piece of paper with a little animated movie? Wasn't that was TV was for? Or those looping gif's on the computer? --And there wasn't any sound, either. It was a bit wild.

She kept quiet when Hagrid muttered, "Ministry o' Magic messin' things up as usual," because he sounded a bit like her uncle did about affairs of state right before he started to rant, if somebody set him off. So she calmly and quietly didn't give him the excuse.

She did make a mental note to add 'Ministry of Magic' to her growing list of things she was going to have to ask after to have explained to her. Hagrid had been open enough to explaining about owls and Muggles and her parents before, but he had a temper, and an umbrella, and he knew how to use it, and she didn't really want to find out what exactly the limits of his patience were. If she went to this wizarding school, well, she could ask a teacher proper, whose job it would be to answer questions, rather than worrying about whether she could rely on this groundskeeper to keep his cool for the duration.

The boat finally bumped gently up against the harbor wall, and Hagrid folded up his newspaper and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.

Hagrid seemed to find things like parking meters odd, and commented loudly and frequently about 'Muggle things'. Rose just smiled weakly at him, guessing that he must not get off the school grounds much.

When they got to the train station, her guess was confirmed when she found herself having to act the adult and buy tickets for the two of them. He didn't seem the least bit interested in learning how to do so himself, either.

She frowned softly to herself as she sat next to Hagrid on the train to London. She worried a little over how her relatives were going to get off of the island. She glanced around from time to time, but otherwise ignored the stares that Hagrid had been garnering from people ever since they 'd stepped out of the boat. She thoroughly ignored the fact that Hagrid took up two seats, and after trying to figure out what that bright yellow thing he was knitting was supposed to be, she just gave up, sat back, and decided to just go with it for the moment.

"Still got yer letter, Rose?" Hagrid asked, breaking the silence peppered with the normal clanking sounds of the train as he counted stitches.

Rose glanced up at him and nodded. She felt the folded letter sitting heavily in her pocket.

"Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list there of everything yeh need."

Rose frowned slightly and pulled out the letter, and when she unfolded it again, this time she realized that there was a second piece of paper to go with the first.

She skimmed the list and felt much better about everything when she saw the book list -- it would be worth it to her to be going shopping a month early, if only for the chance to get a double-armful of new reading material -- her own books! -- at least until reality smacked her in the face yet again and she remembered that books cost money, of which she had none.

She frowned at the owl OR cat OR toad line and wondered why snakes weren't mentioned at all. She thought they'd be prime familiar material, since that looked like what it might be referring to, there. ...Then again, it had been listed right below 'equipment'. (Rose shuddered at the thought of using cat guts for spells.)

She frowned over the reference to a broomstick, as well -- did witches and wizards actually fly about on broomsticks, after all?

She glanced up at Hagrid. _He_ hadn't brought a broomstick... but then she glanced down at his umbrella suspiciously.

When they finally got off the train and out of the station, to quite a good bit of grumbling from Hagrid, Rose wondered how on earth he knew where he was going... if he actually did. They ended up walking an inordinate amount of time, though they never quite doubled-back.

More than once, Rose found herself wondering if she should just duck into a shop and call home, leaving a message on the answering machine for the Dursleys to come and get her, please. She was feeling more and more nervous about all of this, mainly because, although she didn't quite trust Hagrid's temper, she had an unnerving feeling that she ought to trust _him_.

She realized that even though it made no sense that witches and wizards might exist, that she believed him and had taken him at his word when he said they did. She believed that if she followed him long enough, that she'd fall down the rabbit hole with him to another world set apart from her own -- this Muggle world that maybe wasn't quite her own -- into a land ruled by a Ministry of Magic and populated with all sorts of wonderful magical things.

If she didn't believe it, she would have been far less nervous. She was afraid that she wouldn't quite fit in there, either. What if she didn't belong in this magical Britain of Hagrid's, and her mother and father's? What if she was a freak among freaks?

She wasn't sure she could do this. ...No, she couldn't do this. She turned to cut and run--

"This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt suddenly, and Rose gulped and turned back to him. "The Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place."

She looked over to the side and she saw it. It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub, and the people hurrying by didn't glance at it. It was like they didn't see it, or maybe that they _couldn't_.

...and if Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, Rose might have missed it entirely, too. It left her feeling uncertain in an entirely different way -- she and Hagrid could see it, but would she have see it on her own without him?

How many magical things were sprinkled in among the mundane?

How much might she have seen if she'd looked, that she might have already missed?

While her mind was abuzz with all this uncertainty, Hagrid steered her inside before she had the chance to completely lose her nerve. (Again.)

Everyone inside the dark and shabby place seemed to know Hagrid, and the bartender welcomed him by name.

Everyone also seemed to _recognize_ Rose.

And the next ten minutes were the most terror-filled of her life, as she smiled and shook hands and was inundated by wave after wave of strange people she didn't know, who all seemed to somehow know her.

If she hadn't had all those lessons from Petunia in ladylike behavior and politic manners, she might've screamed and bolted within the first minute and a half, because she was supposed to be seen and not heard, **seen and not heard** and _these people were not leaving her alone_.

She was shaking slightly by the time Hagrid led her out the back and clapped a hand on her shoulder again, grinning down at her.

"Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Quirrel was tremblin' ter meet yeh -- mind you, he's usually tremblin'."

'Really? Because I'm 'tremblin' too!' was on the tip of her tongue to yell at him. She knew she must be pale as a sheet, yet this man seemed to think everything was all fine and dandy.

Rose wondered if her Aunt usually felt like this right before she yelled someone (generally Rose) to pieces. If she did, she was suddenly feeling a lot more sympathy for her aunt, because Rose was finding it _horrifically_ difficult to keep up her pasted-on smile.

Hagrid rambled on a bit at her as she tried to cease shaking so very badly, and she memorized the brick to tap on -- three up, two across, tap three times -- that opened up the wall onto what Hagrid called 'Diagon Alley'.

At her first sight of the place, Rose forgot to be scared, mad, angry, or just about anything at all, really.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The first thing Rose saw clearly as they approached the shops was a huge stack of cauldrons, but Hagrid said something about 'getting her her money first'.

"My money?" she asked finally. "What money?" she added, before she snapped her mouth shut.

But Hagrid seemed to pay no mind to her rudeness, and proceeded to spin her a wild tale about a wizard bank called Gringotts, which had goblins and gold-filled vaults and _dragons_ to guard them, even.

Apparently they were going to visit her parents' vault, which was now her own, along with all it contained. Rose wondered how they were going to get in -- it wasn't as though she had some valid form of identification on her that these goblin bankers would take seriously.

Hagrid took care of all the 'paperwork' for her, though -- which apparently consisted solely of staring at her, staring at him, and staring at the key -- and she eyed the tiny golden key to her vault that he held in his massive fist.

When he brought up needing to get into another vault for Hogwarts business, she sighed and relaxed, because now it finally made sense. Hogwarts business. It was all Hogwarts business. She had needed a home visit and help getting funds and books and supplies if she wanted to attend the school, and the school had needed something from the vaults as well. This was why it had to be today, and all done in one day -- speed and efficiency. Two birds, one stone.

She laughed a little to herself at the railway rollercoaster ride Griphook took them on -- he glanced back at her once with a frown and she bit her lip, but his eyes seemed to twinkle a bit at her after that when she whooped at the hard rights, no matter how dour he looked otherwise -- though Hagrid just looked a little green from it all.

They finally careened to a stop in front of her -- her! -- vault, and Rose gasped as Griphook unlocked the door and she got her first good look inside the large vault.

There were huge piles of gold and silver, and heaps of the little bronze coins as well.

 _Huge_ as in the piles were taller than Hagrid, and sometimes almost _half-again_ as tall.

 _Large_ as in it went far enough back that Rose was having trouble seeing the far wall of it, and not just because of the piles.

"Is... is this... all mine?" she said dizzily.

"All yours," smiled Hagrid.

"This... this is a lot, right?" Rose asked. "--I mean, for a wizarding family?"

"It is," Hagrid agreed. "Some of the older fam'lies have more, but yer dad was never short on money, nor yer mom. They both did good work; they added a bit to it before..."

Rose looked up at him, then bit her lip and nodded.

Hagrid moved forward with a bag, but Rose turned to Griphook before stepping in, clutching her hands around her arms. She wasn't quite sure if she trusted herself with it all.

"Is this _really_ all mine?" she asked him. "If... if a relative said that they wanted it--"

"There is no older Potter who may claim this," Griphook said rustily, frowning at her.

"But can _anybody_ **else** lay claim to it? Besides me?" she asked.

"No," Griphook told her firmly, giving her an odd look. "Only you or someone you directly authorize can access this vault." He grinned nastily. "We don't open the vaults here to those who don't belong, not even the Head of the Ministry himself."

"Just-- just checking," Rose said nervously. There had been so many times that the Dursleys had complained about the cost of caring for her that she was sure that they would have taken it all if they'd known of it. But if they didn't even have the smallest claim to its contents at all--

She let out a shaky breath and then asked, "Can I take the gold out... into the Muggle world? --I mean," she struggled to explain, "is it spelled or magical or anything? Can I just use it as normal gold?"

"Of course," Griphook said, frowning deeply at her. "There's nothing wrong with our gold." At her blank look, he added, "All wizarding gold is minted here. There's no odd bits of magic in it. We clean it up right pure, ready for any use."

"Oh," she said quietly, then, "Oh--! I didn't mean--!" She took another breath, worried that she'd offended him. "It's just that I didn't know if I could use it... anywhere. Or if it was all right to melt it down for something." After all, gold was worth a lot, wasn't it?

The goblin suddenly grinned at her again. "The exchange rate for Galleons to pounds is 1 to 5," he said. "Melting them down won't make you much more profit for the cost of the metal than the direct exchange, Miss Potter."

Rose blushed.

"Sorry," she stammered. "I was just trying to--"

"You live in the Muggle world, yes? It's understandable," he said, with the same grin. "We'll be happy to convert them for you at the main desk upstairs, for a minimal fee, as many as you'd like."

"A minimal fee?" she worried.

The goblin's grin widened. "Flat rate, five Knuts for up to ten Galleons, for every ten."

Oh. That didn't sound bad at all. Rose let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

"Oh no, thank _you_ ," said the goblin, who seemed to enjoy talking shop. "We value the Potter household's business."

Rose smiled back.

"Rose?" Hagrid asked, giving her an odd look.

"I just thought I might need... ah, _want_ some school supplies that might not be on the list," Rose explained, finally trusting herself to step into the vault.

It was a small fortune, and it wasn't going anywhere; it was hers, and no-one could take anything from it but her. Ever. She gave a great sigh of relief. She'd never have to worry about starving in the streets, going hungry, any of it. Never again. It was a great comfort, more than she'd ever known. No matter what happened, she would always have this to fall back on; the goblins would keep it safe for her. She could buy a small house and live quietly by herself for the rest of her life, if she had to.

She just needed to survive to adulthood.

And maybe pray that that evil fellow, that Voldemort lunatic, never came after her again. Money obviously hadn't saved her parents from the murderous madman, after all.

At Hagrid's uncertain look, she added, "There might be some Muggle things I need to buy, since Uncle Vernon's not paying for anything for me for school."

Hagrid grumbled, having apparently forgotten that bit. "Didn' think the great lump was serious," he muttered.

"He was," Rose said mildly. "But it's all right... right?" she said.

"Hmph," said Hagrid. "We'll see you with enough for yeh, then, fer the summer an' a couple o' terms," he added grimly.

And then he proceeded to explain Galleons and Sickles and Knuts to her, and Rose began to realize that perhaps he really was rather more patient than she'd worried about, after all. He hadn't interrupted her when she'd talked with Griphook, he hadn't seemed impatient for her even though he had other business to do besides her, and he was still patiently explaining things to her and helping her pick out enough gold and silver to pay for whatever she needed.

She suddenly got the sinking feeling that she'd judged him rather unfairly before.

...Well, the Dudleys _were_ rather trying, after all.

Hagrid held the bag for Rose, which she didn't mind so much, it being quite a lot and rather heavy at the moment. They exited the vault, Griphook locked it again... and gave _Rose_ the key.

"Don't lose it," he admonished her. "We charge a _very_ high fee for replacement."

Rose gulped and nodded.

"There are necklaces you can purchase in Diagon Alley that cannot be removed from your neck without your permission," Griphook told her as they moved back to the cart. "Nor lost, nor stolen, nor broken, nor borrowed away. You could string _that_ on such," he told her, nodding at her small Vault key significantly, and Rose smiled in relief and thanked him for the advice.

By the time they got to Vault seven hundred and thirteen, Hagrid was beginning to look green, and Rose was feeling rather curious as to what this Hogwarts business was all about.

When Griphook told her that anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried to open it, that they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there, Rose couldn't help but blurt out, "Stuck in the vault, or stuck in the door?"

Griphook brightened a bit and said, "Stuck in the door."

"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Rose asked.

"About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty smile.

"What do you do with the bodies, then?" she asked Griphook, morbidly curious. "Do you feed them to the dragons?"

"Rose!" Hagrid chided her, already back to the door's edge. Rose winced, realizing that her curiosity had gotten the better of her on one thing over another, and she glanced past Hagrid quickly and saw the vault looked otherwise empty. Must've been something small.

"Bah, no," said Griphook. "Wizard meat gives the dragons indigestion."

He waited while Rose covered her mouth and giggled a bit, then added, "They don't die in the doors, they're just stuck."

"...What's it like?" Rose asked him, vaguely reminded of what she'd heard about Star Wars and Han Solo in carbonite. "Do you know?"

"Would you like to try it and find out?" Griphook said with another wide grin.

"GRIPHOOK!" Hagrid thundered, and Rose winced and worried at his temper all over again.

Griphook didn't seem nonplussed in the least, however.

"Hm, I'd have to think about clearing that one with my manager first, though. Might set a bad precedent, letting curious patrons muddle up the security like that," Griphook said primly, but he winked at her where Hagrid couldn't see as he turned to lead them back to the cart and her bag of gold and silver.

Rose got the feeling though, that if Hagrid wasn't on the verge of losing the contents of his stomach over the side of the cart, that he'd have been grumbling the entire way back up.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	3. Chapter 3

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rose let out a sigh as she and Hagrid exited Gringotts. She'd liked the cool hidden depths quite a bit, though she supposed the bright warm sunlight was all right, as well. ...So long as she didn't end up sunburned, anyway. She usually didn't unless she was out weeding or washing the car or something from dawn 'til dusk, and she'd never burned as badly as Dudley sometimes did without his sunscreen, but it still made her wince a bit at the clear cloudless sky.

"Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, and she looked up to see him nod across the street at a store with a sign that read 'Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions'. "Listen, Rose, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, and Rose didn't want to risk him in an ill mood all afternoon as that would surely worsen his temper considerably, so she merely nodded and felt a flash of relief at Hagrid's own.

She nearly dropped the bag -- her bag -- of Gringotts money when Hagrid handed it over to her. She let out a huff of surprise and almost wished that she'd been more careful to only take out enough that she'd be able to carry it easily, but... if she had, she'd have had less money on her, for her, wouldn't she?

She shifted the key to her vault in her palm and carefully picked the moneybag up two-handed. She raise and rotated it over a shoulder, until she was carrying it more like she tended to do with those bags of fertilizer for her aunt's flowers back on Privet Drive. This bag wasn't nearly so heavy, though.

She hoped she wouldn't be too much of a sight with her large bag -- she didn't much cherish the thought of someone finding her an easy mark to steal from, and she couldn't run away properly with this slung over her back.

However, anyone who tried to steal this from her would find themselves with a similar problem, surprised by the weight, and she comforted herself with the fact that if anyone _did_ try such a thing that she would certainly have a chance to kick them in the shins and scream for help -- and certainly help she would have, after all she was famous in a good way, wasn't she? -- and if the worst came of it... well, she had a great deal more where this came from.

She did feel a little nervous on her way across the busy street in this odd wizarding world all alone, though.

Rose entered the shop and was immediately greeted by a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve, who introduced herself as Madam Malkin herself.

"Hogwarts, dear?" she asked.

Rose nodded and slowly set her bag down. "Yes'm."

The kindly-looking shopkeeper smiled down at her. "Got the lot here -- there's a young man being fitted up just now for the same school, in fact." She glanced over at Rose's bag and frowned slightly. "Goodness, are you carrying that all yourself?"

"Yes'm," she said, and she almost brought up Hagrid, but then thought the better of it because, well, the woman looked thoughtful. So she waited a moment to see what the Madam would say, and--

"Well, we don't sell enchanted accessories here, really -- not purses and such. The dragon-hide gloves and so on are about the extent of it, and not really enspelled," she said, sounding a bit sorry. "If you want enspelled clothing I'm afraid you'll have to go to Twilfitt and Tatting's for that; we only sell simple cloth-and-hide fabrics, and items-made here. But two doors down is Rollof's Travel Supplies, right next to the Terror Tours office. They sell some bags and the like which have Undetectable Extension Charms and Featherweight Charms spelled into them quite firmly. If you have enough money for one of those," she said, eyeing Rose's bag, "and I think you might," she smiled slightly, "then you might consider getting yourself one. You'd be able to carry that much more easily in a featherweight-charmed bag, and quite a great deal more things with the extension charm included as well, to take full advantage."

Rose stared up at Madam Malkin as she talked, then felt a bit more and more excited as she heard this from her.

"Granted, it's not quite the same as casting the charms yourself," Madam Malkin warned her, "but that's very advanced spellwork. Not many people have the time, energy, or skill to do such for their own items. The extension charm can be very tricky, I hear."

Rose nodded up at her. "I understand," she said. "I'll definitely have a look there next. Thank you."

"Not at all," the Madam said happily. "I rather enjoy talking with new Muggleborn arrivals."

"Um," Rose said, biting her lip, wondering if she should correct the Madam.

"...Oh dear, you're not Muggleborn?" the Madam said. "I'm sorry. Is it just your first time in the Alley then?"

"Well, no," Rose said. "I mean-- um. It is my first time here, yes, but... I was raised by Muggles. I'm not... _technically_ Muggleborn," she dissembled, assuming the woman meant 'not being born to a witch or wizard', and wondering if that was a bad thing.

"Ah!" the Madam said, without losing her smile at all. She patted Rose on the shoulder genially. "I see. I'm glad to know I wasn't nattering on about things you already knew," she said with a wink.

"Oh no," Rose hurried to assure her, smiling back. "I didn't know anything about charms at all! That sort of purse sounds a little like something out of a game, not something I would expect to find here at all, though it does sound horribly convenient. I'm glad you told me," she told the woman as she was gently led to the back of the shop for fitting, carefully lifting the bag just enough that it wasn't dragging against the ground.

Then she decided to take the plunge and asked, "Actually, I heard something else... _almost_ as interesting... from one of the Gringotts goblins," she said carefully.

"Oh?" the Madam asked, her eyebrows rising.

Rose took a deep breath and added, "The one who showed me to my vault and around and such, Griphook, said something about there being necklaces one can string things on and wear that can't be removed by someone else," she frowned slightly trying to recall correctly, "nor lost, stolen, or borrowed away. Do you know where I might find a place that sells those as well?"

"Hm," said the Madam. "They might be selling such at the Travel Supplies store, but that sounds a bit like a specialty item. If they don't have them there, then there's a jewelry shop over by Flourish and Blotts, where you'll likely be getting your school books."

Rose smiled.

"If I manage to get an extension charm on something, could I come back here and buy some extra fabric? --You do sell just fabric as well, you said?" she asked anxiously, hoping she'd heard the woman-witch correctly.

The woman frowned down at Rose a bit, and Rose tried not to wince. "Well, yes," the Madam said. "But you won't be doing well to be finding anyone to sew a better robe than us, if I do say so myself! Twilfitt and Tatting's might be upmarket, but my sewing needles are far better enchanted, I think," she said puffing out her chest a little with pride.

"...Enchanted sewing needles?" Rose echoed, feeling a little out of her depth. "Do they... do the needles need to be enchanted to sew the cloth?" she asked tentatively. "I mean -- I would like to buy full sets of clothing for school here, please, but I may need the extra material for patches or making extra sets that aren't as good, if something happens to my main set," she stammered, suddenly realizing how this all must sound.

And Rose stood there and watched as the Madam's frown seemed to become another sort of frown altogether. "You... sew? The Muggle way?"

"Yes'm," Rose admitted. "I'm not very good at it though, my aunt tells me."

Madam gave her an appraising sort of look, and Rose suddenly felt _very_ embarrassed at the state of her clothes in this shop. "Did you make these yourself?" Madam Malkin asked without much inflection, and Rose shifted uneasily.

"Not the cloth," Rose said, "But I sewed them up from other clothing."

"What pattern did you use?" the witch asked her.

 _Pattern?_ Rose thought blankly. "I... I didn't," Rose admitted.

"Oh dear," the witch said softly. "Goodness. May I?" she said a little more loudly, gesturing at her.

She led Rose behind a curtain and had Rose pass her her shirt. "Hmmm," Rose heard after a minute or so, then was given it back in short order. She put it back on and stepped back out again as she straightened the hem, waiting for the verdict. "Well, your neddlework's really not so bad for an unenchanted needle," she was told. "Not at all. And for a work without a pattern, it doesn't hang too badly on you..."

"I'm not suppose to have it fit too well," Rose admitted, and watched the witch's eyebrows go up, then go distant for a moment, reassessing something in her mind's eye.

"Oh. Goodness. Yes. My." Madam Malkin looked back down at her with something like a newfound respect. "I think you'd do just fine following a pattern then, enchanted needle or not," she said firmly. "But if I am to sell you such supplies then you must promise me something," she said to her very seriously.

"Yes'm?"

"You must follow the pattern _exactly_ ," the Madam said. "Do not cut the cloth any other way, unless you think it shall come out better for you, _not_ worse." She paused. "And if you do come up with a finer cut, send me a copy of the new pattern."

"I... I'm not sure I can do that," Rose said uneasily.

"Whyever not, child?" the Madam asked.

"I don't know how to follow a pattern -- what is that, please?"

"Oh!" the Madam said, and she went into a flurry of motion, pulling out a roll of supplies as she explained, and the patterns turned out to be long pieces of paper with designs on them, which were to be used to determine how to cut the cloth and put it together--!

"Now, you might have to, hm, let's see, if you don't have a pair of enchanted scissors to cut for you -- or would rather do it the Muggle way... hm, I think they cut the paper and then use something to mark the fabric, like chalk?" The Madam shook her head. "Always seemed a bit messy to me, hearing of it, but I suppose if you wash it up carefully later, then there's no harm done."

Rose was in seventh heaven, at least until she heard the pale boy in the back of the shop cough dryly with a laugh hidden underneath it.

"Oh dear," the Madam said as if scolding herself, "And here I am, keeping you both. --We can talk about it later when we're about to get your purchases rung up, yes?" the Madam said, clapping Rose on the shoulder in a friendly manner, and Rose grinned up at her and nodded right back.

Madam Malkin shooed her up onto a footstool next to the boy, who was just finishing having his black robes pinned up by a second witch.

The Madam slipped a long robe over her own head and began to pin it to the right length, while the boy with the pale, pointed face gave her a long smirking look.

"Muggle-raised but not a mudblood, eh?" he said.

"Young Mr. Malfoy!" Madam Malkin scolded him, waggling a long and very pointed pin at his face. "That is not a word to be using in front of a proper young witch of any sort!"

Malfoy snapped his mouth shut, not wanting to be poked by the Madam... or her asssitant, who was also looking up at him with a bit of a gleam in her eye and a good few pins in her hand left to go.

"Um..." Rose asked softly. "What word?"

The Madam winced and the sighed. "I'll say it the once, and hope it shall never again have to pass my lips," she intoned. "Mudblood. It's a horrible, horrible derogatory term for a Muggle-born, and only lowborn little chits and such who think all out of sorts believe it a proper curse to use in polite company," she said, giving Malfoy the Evil Eye.

Rose winced slightly as Malfoy looked a little angry at the obvious putdown.

"Um, it's all right," she said. "I'm not... offended or anything, I think. I mean, Muggles don't really have mud for blood. It's just..." she shrugged. "Not sure why anyone would think so," she said, frowning curiously at Malfoy.

"It's not that we think they have actual mud sliding through them!" Malfoy protested, obviously not wanting to come off as stupid. "It's because some of us wizards are purebloods, and only have wizards for ancestors," he proclaimed. "Pure, muddy -- get it?"

"I suppose..." Rose said, scratching her head.

"So, where are your parents, then?" Malfoy asked her.

"Dead," she said. "I've been living with my relatives ever since I can remember," she added, not about to pretend she knew anything she didn't about this wizardly place.

"Oh, sorry," Malfoy said, sounding more curious than sorry at all, probably about her being exposed to Muggles so much. "But they **were** _our_ kind, weren't they?"

"My mom was a witch, and my dad a wizard, if that's what you mean," Rose said slowly.

"Huh," said Malfoy, eyeing her like an odd specimen. "My dad says that they shouldn't let Muggleborns into Hogwarts because they're not the same, because they've never been brought up to know our ways," he said. "He says that some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter." He looked about to say something more, but glanced at the other witches and kept it to himself as his own measuring witch helped him carefully remove the pinned-up robe and took it into the back of the store.

"...I don't know about Muggleborns not being the same as people here, wizards and witches," Rose said slowly. "I was never really the same as my relatives, Muggles, though, and I don't know myself if I'll fit here, or at Hogwarts." She bit her lip. "But I know I'd never heard of Hogwarts 'til I read my letter," she offered. "So that's true at least."

"Bloody hell," Malfoy breathed out, looking at her like she was one odd duck. She was used to that sort of look, though, so it didn't mean much to her. "I bet you're glad to be here now, though," he smirked at her widely, bright-eyed.

"I guess," she shrugged. "Haven't seen enough of it yet to tell, really," she sighed out. "Though Diagon Alley's strange- _fascinating_ , and the carts at Gringotts are _wicked_ ," she admitted with a quick grin, and got one back. She felt a little more at-ease, realizing she wasn't the only one who thought so.

"Where are your parents?" she asked in return, remembering that a real lady should always show more interest in what their conversant might say than in talking about herself.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands. Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms," said the boy, looking at her sideways as the Madam finished fitting her. He looked like he was about to blurt something out, then rethought how he wanted to say it. "You know what brooms and wands are all for," he said, sounding like he was pretty sure she didn't.

Rose glanced up at Madam Malkin, who was taking her own pinned-up robe to the back, then turned back to Malfoy. "Are the wands for magic, and the brooms flying?" she asked, wondering if he'd lie to her or not.

He looked surprised, then nodded. "Thought Muggles didn't know about that sort of thing," he said.

"Well, there are lots of stories -- Muggle stories," she amended, "about magic and witches and wizards and such," she told him, and he looked even more surprised. "I've no idea how true any of them are, though. Not all of them have wands or brooms in them, though," she added.

"Huh," said the boy, looking a bit put out.

"How do the wands work, do you know?" she asked him.

Malfoy stared at her, then screwed up his face. "Ollivander makes them, very few people know how." But then he looked excited. "He's the best wandmaker in the wizarding world. Everybody who is anybody in Britain gets their wands from him," he said. "The Ministry doesn't let _children_ get their own wands until they're ready to start learning magic," he said. "But now that we're eleven..."

"So we'll both be getting our wands for the first time for Hogwarts?" Rose asked.

Malfoy gave her a considering look, then nodded.

"What do we need the wands for?" Rose asked.

Malfoy stared at her. "For doing magic!" he told her, like it was the stupidest question ever. "No wizard can hardly do a bit of magic without one!"

Rose frowned and felt a little uneasy. "But..." she started, then stopped.

"But what?" Malfoy asked her.

"But... what if you didn't have a wand and..." _Freak Things happened_ "you still did magic anyway?"

Malfoy blinked at her. "Only the really powerful wizards can do that," he said. "That's wandless magic. That's... hard." He stared at her narrow-eyed. "Where'd you hear about that? One of your Muggle books?"

"I..." Rose swallowed hard. "Well, no, but I guess some... do. Say things like that," she said. "But, I mean..." She wrapped her arms around herself and looked away. "What if... you did magic and you didn't mean to?"

She bit her lip and stole a peek at Malfoy, who looked at her for a moment, then blinked and seemed to relax. "Oh, _that_ ," he said. "You mean _accidental_ magic. Like you weren't trying to cast a spell and things just happened, right?"

Rose nodded, feeling a little relieved. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't know what it was called. All Hagrid said was that I should know I have magic because sometimes when I got scared or angry, things just happened, because I made them happen, somehow." She shifted from foot to foot. "I didn't know that I was supposed to have a wand or anything. I didn't even know I was a witch until... well, this morning, really."

"Well, that explains it, then," Malfoy smiled at her. "I thought you were putting me on for a moment there."

"Why?" she asked, curious.

"Because wand magic is easy. Well, easi _er_ ," he said. "You have to learn wand magic first, before nonverbal magic, and nonverbal magic before wandless magic, and almost nobody is strong enough to do wandless magic. It's very bloody hard even then, almost impossible."

"It is?" Rose said, confused. "But doesn't accidental magic happen to you all the time?" Rose said.

"All the-- _what?_ " Malfoy squawked, then gave her a look.

"Um," Rose blushed, hoping that she really wasn't that much of a freak with broken magic. "I guess... maybe it's just because I'm angry most all of the time?" she said tentatively. It was certainly true enough. She couldn't really remember a time when she didn't feel at least a little angry. Even now.

"I... guess..." Malfoy said, looking at her askance.

"It's not big things or anything, I don't think," she said, rushing to try and explain. "Probably not even real magic at all, really!"

Malfoy didn't say anything.

Rose breathed a deep breath in and out, and tried not to feel too nervous.

It was then that Madam Malkin came out with sets of robes for them both, as well as dragon-hide gloves, a black hat each, and a winter cloak, so they both went up to the counter to pay for their purchases.

"You said something about a Hagrid telling you about accidental magic?" Malfoy said.

"Well, he _sort-of_ did," Rose groused, a little annoyed that the giant man hadn't explained it to her properly.

"I've heard of him," Malfoy said. "He's some sort of savage who lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting his bed on fire."

"Oh," said Rose quietly, digesting this. She supposed living in such conditions might explain his temper, though the rest seemed a little... exaggerated. "He just told me he was the gamekeeper and someone broke his wand for some reason while he was at Hogwarts, but he wouldn't say why." She thought for a moment. "Do broken wands do magic well?"

"No," scoffed Malfoy.

"What about umbrellas?" she asked, thinking about how Hagrid had gestured with his umbrella every time he did magic.

"...No," Malfoy said, frowning at her.

"Hm," she said. _Well, I suppose that explains it,_ she thought. She glanced up through the window of the shop and saw Hagrid suddenly. The giant man grinned at her and pointed at two ice creams he was holding.

She gave him back a wavering smile, then bit her lip as she glanced up at the Madam.

"Um, I don't know how long I can stay for patterns," she said, glancing out the window. The Madam followed her gaze.

"Ah," she said with a small smile. "Not to worry, dear, just give me a moment." She slipped into the back and was at the counter again in seconds with a small pile. Glancing through it, Rose saw two small bolts of cloth, and several of those patterns Madam had talked about, along with some other vital supplies. They looked to be in _much_ better shape than her own needle, battered pair of scissors, and scavenged-from-picked-apart-clothes thread. From the looks of it, there was even a thimble or two that might fit! No more pricked fingers!

"It's just a small standard set," Madam told her. "Enough to get you started. And, hm," she pulled out a catalog and added it to the pile. "In case you see anything else you'd like, you can reach me by owl post," she said with a wink.

Rose smiled, feeling like there was a bright light beaming from inside her, and thanked the Madam gratefully as she paid her, while out of the corner of her eye she watched Malfoy gawk out the window at Hagrid with eyes wide as saucers.

"Is that him?" Malfoy asked in an almost squeaky voice as she hefted her still quite heavy bag of coins over one shoulder, and tucked her clothes and supplies -- wrapped in a brown paper package by a wave of the Madam's wand, conveniently enough -- under her other arm.

Rose nodded to him, as she was deciding how best to ask Hagrid to let her stop off at Rollof's Travel Supplies store.

"You want to meet him?" she asked Malfoy.

He scoffed. "A mere servant?"

"Gamekeeper," she corrected. It was at that point that she realized that Malfoy did kind of want to meet Hagrid, but was a bit too stuck up to think of how to be able to properly. She smirked a bit. "You'll have to meet him eventually, you know," she said. "Might as well come say hi before the rest of the students get to him and he doesn't even know your name," she teased ever so slightly.

Malfoy gasped at this pronouncement. "He _ought_ to know my name," he said dangerously, as he grabbed up his own parcel, and with that he stuck his nose in the air and marched out of the shop right alongside her.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," he informed Hagrid snootily.

"Ah, so _yer_ the young Malfoy comin' to Hogwarts this year!" Hagrid said genially enough. He shifted the ice cream cones to one hand again easily, then shook Draco's hand with his free one. It completely engulfed Draco's hand, and the shaking itself moved Draco's whole arm up and down and almost rattled him about. Draco looked a bit nonplussed even after being released. "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts."

"Feeling better after the cart ride, Hagrid?" Rose asked.

"That I am, Rose, thank yeh for askin'," Hagrid said. "Ah, bit much to carry all like that, is it? Sorry fer that," he sighed, finally realizing her difficulty and motioning for the bag of money.

Rose handed it over but also said, "Madam Malkin said there's a shop two doors down that sells enchanted bags--"

"Ah!" Hagrid said, grinning all over again. "That's a good thought, Rose, good head on those shoulders," he proclaimed as he handed over one of the ice cream cones. "We'll do that. Proper witch should have a proper bag fer her things."

Rose glanced down at her cone, then to Draco and bit her lip.

Draco smirked in understanding. "It's fine," he said. "I'll get my father to buy me one after. _Two_ scoops," he snickered. "I think I'll go see my mother at Ollivander's first, though," he grinned at her wickedly.

"What, you need _more_ of a head start in magic than me, Draco?" she teased.

For that, she got a genuine grin out of him before composed himself and strode off, all aloof and proper.

"Huh," said Hagrid. "Heard he was a little bit of a snake," he said, looking down at Rose curiously.

"I like snakes," said Rose.

Hagrid gave her an odd look, but then seemed to shrug it off. He escorted her to Rollof's, the two of them slowly eating their ice cream along the way.

Rose sighed happily over her cone. She hadn't had ice cream in forever, and certainly nothing so good as this.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter is a little bit mental all the way through. If you need happy at the end, I recommend waiting to read this until chapter 5 comes out, which will rebalance things a bit.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rose hadn't meant to finish her ice cream so fast, but she'd been hungry and it had tasted really very good.

Well, at least she had gotten through it before it had melted.

Rollof's Travel Supplies was rather easy enough to navigate. Rose found a bewitched money pouch in short order with both the Undetectable Extension and Featherweight Charms on it for three Galleons, and she sucked in a breath as she started looking over travel trunks.

When she came across a travel trunk with both the Undetectable Extension and Featherweight Charms cast on it, which also had Locomotor and Summoning Charms as well as a Muggle-Repelling Charm, she found the owner and asked a few questions. As it turned out, the Locomotor Charm seemed to allow a person to move and float the trunk anywhere. Combined with a weak Muggle-Repelling Charm, apparently this left the trunk as noticeable by any Muggle, except for the fact that it was floating. Mr. Rollof assured her that the charm was still strong enough that any Muggle otherwise interested in searching it would still be disinclined to open or move it.

The Summoning Charm apparently allowed the owner to retrieve objects immediately from anywhere inside the trunk. When Rose asked Mr. Rollof about a charm to return items to where they'd been put, he shook his head sadly and said that they'd been working on a specialized version of the Banishment Charm for some time, but hadn't managed to create one with the specificity of the Summoning Charm yet.

The shop owner then gave her a demonstration of the trunk, undoing the first lock and showing her the inside, which seemed common enough. He then closed it up again, redid the first lock, and undid the second. This opened up onto a shaft with a ladder that he escorted them down, which opened onto a small room -- which is to say, one the size of Rose's new small bedroom at the Dursleys' house. She thought it quite neat -- the very idea, that one could live in a travel trunk and not even need a house, if one didn't need to cook! She was a bit worried about the possibility of being able to be locked in if the lid was closed, but the proprietor gave her assurances to the contrary, and showed her how the locks could be undone from the inside.

When she'd followed him back up and out again and asked the price, she nearly fainted.

She decided that she shouldn't need the extra space that badly at the moment, as bully as it all was, and she asked after other options.

It turned out that the extensible charm wasn't necessary for the differently-locked compartments -- that was done by an entirely different sort of space-saving charm. This made the summoning charm completely unnecessary, and with both those removed from her list of essentials, that brought it down to a reasonable price for the Featherweight, Locomotor, and Muggle-Repelling Charms, which were apparently standard.

She hemmed and hawwed and finally decided upon a four-lock-compartment travel trunk after Hagrid's input: nominally one for books, one for clothing and other accessories, one for spell components and other magical errata, and one for miscellaneous extra belongings. Hagrid made some strange comment about even Mad Eye being happy with the trunk that he and Rollof laughed over a bit, whatever that all meant, and Rose added yet another odd magic thing to her list of Things To Research.

At thirty galleons the trunk was quite pricey, but she felt it well worth the investment, given that she wasn't completely certain that her Uncle would buy her one if she needed it, or otherwise let her use an older steam trunk -- one they wouldn't mind getting rid of.

Unfotunately, the shopkeeper informed her that they didn't sell the sort of necklace that the goblin had described to her.

She sighed in relief as she paid for her purchases and transferred all her remaining money -- still quite a lot -- to her new pouch and its three inner compartments, one for each type of wizarding coin. She'd worry about the pounds later, figuring she could always fold them up and stick the wad on top. She wanted to get through all her shopping in the Alley first and see how much wizarding coin she had left before deciding how much to convert over to pounds.

She carefully slid her bundle from Madam Malkin's into the second compartment and closed it up, then received the set of four keys from Mr. Rollof that went with it. She clutched the trunk keys in her fist, along with her Gringotts vault key, and waited patiently while the magical ownership of the bag and trunk were transferred to her. The few mystic passes of the man's wand and mutterings to accompany them all seemed a bit odd to her, but Hagrid seemed to find nothing objectionable about it, so she assumed the man wasn't cheating her and hoped that it had all gone all right.

After thanking the store owner for his time and exiting with her trunk following dutifully at her heels, Rose politely asked Hagrid if they could visit the jewelry store by Flourish and Blotts next.

Hagrid agreed readly enough, stating that that was where they'd need to be going to buy her school books anyhow.

~*~*~*~*~*~

At the jewelry shop -- Laurie's Mixed Jems and Assorted Sparkly Goods -- Rose was dismayed to find that they did sell the necklaces, and they were exactly as the goblin had said they were.

What dismayed her, though, was that the shopkeeper was incredibly banal about it, and thought them completely worthless, a sort of child's toy or some-such nonsense!

Rose, frowning over this news, bought three of the necklaces for five Knuts each -- one gold, one silver, one bronze.

She decided that she probably ought not take the wizarding world's say-so on whether something was valuable or worthless at face value, if this was any indication.

Honestly, it only served to validate her belief that this Hogwarts school -- with its generally-genial yet somewhat-volatile gamekeeper and headmistress of questionable attentiveness or care -- might not be all that it was cracked up to be, and made her wonder what other wizarding schools might be out there, or if there were private tutors or similar who might teach magic up to a point. She certainly had the money for it if it came to that.

But that was a thought for the future. For now, she slipped her vault key onto the gold chain, the four trunk keys onto the bronze, and dropped all three necklaces around her neck.

Then, she focused her thoughts on obtaining the first-year spellbooks Hogwarts recommended.

...and any other spellbooks she might be able to get away with buying.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Flourish and Blotts was another little slice of heaven for her. She never wanted to leave.

Hagrid rather ruined the experience for her by being adamant about only letting her buy the books on her list.

She'd tried. She really had. She'd found a book entitled _Curses and Counter-curses_ and tested the waters by telling Hagrid that she was thinking of cursing Dudley, since Hagrid had seemed to find that more than acceptable behavior. She somehow didn't think that Hagrid would take it well if she told him the real reason she wanted it -- that she wanted to try and reverse the pig-tail curse he'd put on Dudley, knowing that if Hagrid hadn't actually undid the spell on him before they left the little island, leaving him like that would not go well for her.

But instead of any sort of encouragement, or even a noncommittal response, he told her flat-out, "I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances. An' anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."

And _that_ had led to a long discussion about the Ministry of Magic's special decrees, and rules about underage wizardry, and rules about using magic in front of Muggles, and the like.

Apparently there was a thing called the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery banning the use of underage magic outside of a school, enforced by the Ministry. Magic was apparently only allowed in front of Muggles -- or outside of school for underage magic -- for self-defense in a life-threatening situation. Children younger than eleven or not in possession of a wand were mostly exempt because it was assummed that they had no control over any accidental magic they might perform, but that was about it.

There was also a thing called The Trace, which was a charm placed on all wizards and witches under the age of seventeen, which apparently somehow automatically reported when magic was being used around an underage witch or wizard to the Ministry immediately.

This had Rose wondering when and how the charm was placed and, if it was already on her, why nobody thought it odd that so much accidental magic had been going on with her and why they hadn't sent someone to help her sooner -- or at all -- if it was so out of the ordinary -- because she'd gotten the impression from Draco that it had not been normal, not at all.

Finally, there was the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, which stated in no uncertain terms that each Ministry of Magic -- apparently there was one for each Muggle country -- was responsible for not allowing the Muggle community to find out about magic... which translated to the Ministry enforcing the international law by demanding that no magic should be performed in front of Muggles that would draw any attention to wizarding Britain.

Rose had had to get some clarification from Hagrid about that one. Apparently Muggle families with wizarding family members didn't really count, exactly. Rose suspected it had more to do with adult wizards and witches getting away with it because they weren't being Traced if they did anything, and any regular old Muggles caught up in being tormented would get called insane and tossed in an asylum if they couldn't prove whatever had happened to be magic, which would mean that the 'no drawing attention from the Muggle community at large' bit would be satisfied. Even if the Muggles that got magicked had wizards in the family, they probably wouldn't know enough to be able to find their way to the Ministry to complain, and so long as their tormentors didn't let them get away until they'd been 'convinced' not to say anything...

It made Rose angry.

Here she was, not wanting to do accidental magic anymore, and the moment she picked up a wand and tried to get it under control, she'd be at this Ministry's mercy. --And that was if she was _lucky_. They still might decide to do something horrible to her if she decided not to go to Hogwarts, didn't get herself a wand, and tried to learn how to control her magic on her own, because _if she was outside of a school and cast magic_...

Would they even care if it was accidental or not? That she would be trying to learn how _not_ to do any more magic?

...Well, they certainly hadn't cared that she'd been sleeping in a cupboard ever since she could remember, practically, or how her relatives had been half-starving her and otherwise treating her like free slave labor the vast majority of the time.

For all Rose knew, these people might think dungeons and torture racks were a good idea and a reasonable punishment. Hagrid refused to discuss consequences with her, dodging away from her questions the way he had about Voldemort being alive still and the breaking of his own wand, and this left her assuming the worst. After all, Diagon Alley was practically _medieval_ \-- there was no electricity or electric- _anything_ , and even the shop lights were either torches or little magical-globe-things -- and she had no reason to think that the wizarding sense of justice or their jail accommodations had improved or progressed in any way forward from that when _other_ things obviously hadn't.

It was looking more and more like she was going to _have_ to attend Hogwarts for the year, whether she liked it or not.

...if Hagrid was telling her the truth.

Well, if it was a school, it ought to have a proper library. She could do research and find out herself once she was relatively-safely ensconced there. She couldn't imagine them writing up books that had lies in them just for the students attending, especially since pureblood wizarding people like Draco -- who had grown up knowing all these things and wouldn't want Muggleborns around -- would also be attending and would surely _want_ to give any Muggleborn a very good reason or twelve not to attend, up to and including the truth if anyone was lying about such laws and things.

She resolved herself to also look into other Ministries, to see if any of them might have less-strict rules about these things, and other schools, in case there was someplace better that she might be able to transfer to for the next year. It was probably too late to change her attendance for this year to someplace else, even if she had known where else she wanted to go. She didn't like the idea of trying to figure out moving to another _country_ , but she might not have a choice. She felt horribly unsafe at the moment, and she didn't like how it was making her feel -- angry, frustrated, afraid, scared -- and those were all things that made her accidental magic burst out uncontrollably, which always made things that much worse, and which would very soon now get her into a lot of trouble it it happened again.

Lord, no wonder everyone thought attending Hogwarts was a foregone conclusion! There just wasn't any other choice for these wizarding folk!

...including her. She was wizarding folk, too.

"Yer bein' a bit quiet there, Rose. Yeh all right?" Hagrid asked.

"I'm fine," Rose said thinly, her lips compressing into a line. "Where next?"

The trip was thoroughly unenjoyable from that point onward. Rose just couldn't bring herself to feel anything but wary and twitchy -- as though someone was looking over her shoulder ready to drop an unfair sentence on her for doing something wrong that she didn't understand or couldn't control, _because they were_ \-- and they only briefly stopped at a few stalls and then an Apothecary for the rest of her 'magical equipment'.

They checked her list again outside the Apothecary shop, though Rose didn't need to. She knew she only had the wand left to buy at this point, and the optional animal.

But when Hagrid said, "--oh yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present," Rose nearly went white before she went red. She really hadn't needed the reminder that she was now eleven and subject to the whims of adults in a society which she knew nothing about at all.

"You don't have to--" she started weakly.

"I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal," he said. But before she could say 'a toad, please,' which was the closest thing to a snake on the list, Hagrid said, "Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at -- an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."

And while one part of Rose listened to Hagrid and nodded and thought it all very reasonable, another part of Rose just out-and-out _screamed_ in frustration. Here he was, not even family, making arbitrary decisions for her and not listening to her -- _again!_ He knew she liked snakes -- she had _just_ told him this earlier, and she knew he had heard her -- but he was picking things how _he_ liked them -- not even bothering to ask her if she liked cats, when it was going to be _her animal_ , not his!

What really burned her was that if he'd not cut in like this, she could have quite easily bought whatever she'd wanted for herself.

Worse, she knew that speaking up and telling him what she wanted was a horrendously ungrateful act and going to most likely leave her with nothing -- not a birthday present, her first ever, and not a trip to the store for any animal at all -- and she'd deserve it, too.

Even worse than that, she realized that she was being horrid, having an internal temper-tantrum of the like of Dudley at his worst. And at that thought, it slowly began to occur to her why.

This trip had been the worst sort of torture, more devious and soul-shredding than anything the Dursleys could ever have devised.

Rose had been given a taste of freedom. Just a taste. Told she had largess, been shown it, been able to hold some of it in her hands and carry it at her side. She'd been given the opportunity to be left alone -- glorious freedom! -- to do what she wanted in Madam Malkin's shop.

And then Hagrid had chaperoned her for the rest of the day, dictating what she could or could not do according to his own whims. The trips to the travel supplies store and jeweler could easily be explained away as Hagrid not wanting to have to keep track of her money or her keys for her. He'd hardly listened to her in anything else, after all. And what was money really worth, if you couldn't actually use it?

She'd been shown what she could have, so sweet a taste to long for... except that she was denied it. Completely. Again. At least her aunt and uncle let up a bit on her once in awhile, when she'd been very good. At least when she was brought to the library and was told 'no', she knew that the next time she was just as likely to be given a grumbling 'yes'. But this wizarding world was a long string of 'no's and 'don't's and threats of horrible and inescapable punishment for things she couldn't help, lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce and tear and rend.

\--With the Durselys, it was one thing -- doing accidental magic and being berated for it. At least she had an idea of the punishments that tended to entail, and they even seemed reasonable to an extent for the amount of disruption caused. But here? When they would know what caused it, know she couldn't help it and would punish her anyway despite that? That despite that knowledge, they would go to such lengths as to actively withhold from her the help she needed to stop her accidental magic the way she wanted to, in all ways but one -- the sole singular path they deemed fit for her to undertake, like it or not, with no real choice in the matter -- that, _that_ seemed _worse_ than criminal.

She tried, very _very_ hard, to force the anger back down, knowing what would happen if she couldn't. She told herself, over and over again, that at least if she ended up with a horrible foul old bird, instead of a talkative kind and lovely snake, that at least she'd be able to send off to Madam Malkin's for more patterns and material with it.

By the time they exited the Owl Emporium with a dead-white slumbering snowy owl, she even almost believed it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

She gave Hagrid her thanks for the owl, but only by the grace of her aunt's lady-lessons was she able to keep it from sounding like an insult.

And then Hagrid took her to Ollivanders.

She'd been looking forward to the idea of a wand before when Draco had brought it up. Now... now she felt almost sick at the thought, as though she was walking right into the teeth of a hunter's steel trap, the maw cracked open and still glinting red with fresh blood from its last ensnarement of all-unknowing-and-unwilling prey.

She made small-talk with the elderly shopkeeper when he made his presence known. It was only polite. She was used to being polite, even under the most trying circumstances. Catering her aunt's bridge club meetings for her was a fine example of such restraint.

She was given wands to hold and wave and did so, only to have them snatched away, over and over again. She'd almost begun to feel something inside her lighten, some ray of hope that perhaps there had been a mistake after all, perhaps she wasn't _really_ a witch after all, just a Muggle, and she'd be able to go home, exempt from all their laws and undue, overbearing influence--

\--when eleven inches of nice and supple holly with a phoenix tail feather shattered that flickering dream with a stream of warm red and gold fireworks.

And then she was left asking, breathlessly, "...What's curious?"

And then she was told that Voldemort -- the madman who had tried to kill her -- had used a wand with a core that was a twin to hers now.

She thought about this, and the scar on her forehead throbbed as she did.

She listened to Ollivander say how Voldemort had done great, yet terrible things.

She licked her lips and quietly asked Ollivander if Voldemort had ever attacked the Ministry of Magic.

Ollivander informed her that in fact he had -- he had tried to overthrow them.

"I see," said Rose.

It occurred to her that the victors write the history books.

She felt a sudden sympathy for the man who might not have been such a madman, perhaps, after all.

She looked into the wandmaker's silver eyes, and had the sudden feeling that the man knew exactly what she was thinking.

Rose shivered. She paid seven gold Galleons for her wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop in silence.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Because if you read what Hagrid first told Harry very carefully, he said how Voldemort went and got himself a lot of power, killed anybody who stood up to him, fought against Dumbledore, and killed Harry's parents. And then Harry remembered "a high, cold, cruel laugh". That's it.
> 
> 'Bad and worse' and sides can be kind of... relative, when it comes to two evils fighting each other, no?
> 
> ;)


	5. Chapter 5

~*~*~*~*~*~

The late afternoon sun was hanging low in the sky as Rose and Hagrid exited Ollivander's shop.

Rose bit her lip and felt more brazen than she should under her anger.

"Is Gringotts still open?" she asked, knowing full well it was -- she'd checked the hours sign on the way out.

"Think so, Rose. Why?" he frowned down at her. "Can't think yeh need more out of yer vault."

"Not that," Rose said. "But the pounds exchange..."

"Ah!" said Hagrid. "Forgot about tha'," he said, which didn't surprise her in the least. "Right. Sorry, Rose. Let's get back there then."

And so they did.

Rose listened to Hagrid's explanation on the minimum she would likely need for pocket money and such for the terms she'd be staying at Hogwarts that year, as she had no-one else to ask. Then, when he wasn't quite paying attention, she converted _all_ the rest she had in her pouch to pounds.

The goblin at the counter doing the moneychanging seemed to approve, if the grin he gave her was any indication. He couted everything out under the counter, then handed her back a small bag with the contents, and she opened it and counted it quickly -- inside the bag. She then quickly transferred the wad to her own bespelled money pouch, giving the goblin a similar grin back.

Hagrid thanked the goblin as she did, and escorted her out.

She felt a little better after talking with the goblins again, even if it had been a quick transaction. She was reminded that they seemed to think very little of the Ministry of Magic themselves, which improved her mood even more -- knowing she wasn't the only one who felt that way -- though at the time it didn't quite occur to her to wonder why they felt the way they did.

As she and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley towards the Muggle-world exit, a singular shop caught her eye.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

She winced as she suddenly _realized_ that she'd stopped, worried about an eminent scolding -- or worse -- and looked up.

And then she realized that Hagrid had _kept going_ , not having noticed at all.

She nearly started at this revelation, then felt a rush of excitement -- hah, not chaperoned properly at all! -- and ducked into the store forthwith, making sure her trunk -- and caged owl on top of it -- made it properly through the door.

Then she turned around and got a good look at the place and, oh, she'd thought the bookstore was paradise.

Lisellict's Lizard Lair was the reptile and amphibian version of Eeylops Owl Emporium.

She sighed happily as she twirled about in a circle in the center of the store, taking it all in.

And then she heard an odd and rather attention-getting hiss from one of the far corners of the shop.

She turned her head and slowly walked forward, almost entranced, and stopped in front of one particular aquarium out of all the others, holding a small green snake, no longer than her hand and barely half as wide around as her own pinky finger, and a larger bright green snake, about twice as long as that and much wider.

"Did you ssay ssomething?" she asked them, not quite sure which one had called her.

They were both quiet now, though the others in their aquariums let out a chorus of hellosssss of which she was happy to return.

"Ah, the _Dendroaspis angusticeps_ and _Opheodrys vernalis_ ," she heard next to her.

"The... the what?" Rose said, blinking up at the tall, thin shopkeeper who had silently sidled up next to her.

"Their Latin names, though they are more commonly known as the Eastern green mamba and the smooth green snake," the wizard elaborated with a thin snake-like smile.

"Oh," said Rose.

"Do you know the characteristics of each?" he asked. "Which is which?"

Rose was sorry to say she did not, but the others surely did, and were happy to tell her.

"...One is poisonous and from Africa, and the other is not and from North America?" she dutifully repeated.

The wizard's thin smile quirked up at one corner. "Ah, but which iss which?" he asked.

Rose looked into the tank. The snakes were silent. She frowned a little then turned back to the shopkeeper and said, "Doess it matter?"

The man's grin widened and he gave a hissing sort of laugh. "To some, yes," he said.

"Why?" Rose asked.

"Because one might wish to know whether one's pet can kill you," the wizard told her.

"...Pet?" Rose asked in confusion, and felt even more confused as the man's grin widened further.

"Ah well," he said. "Some lesser witches might be confused at the idea of a snake as an equal, rather than the thought of tending to a lesser creature."

"But I'd rather have a friend I can talk with," Rose frowned, not really understanding why anyone would choose anything else, glancing back at her snowy owl. Sure, an owl might be convenient for wizarding mail delivery, but the boa constrictor at the zoo had been perfectly lovely -- a gentleman of a snake. None of the owls had seemed willing or able to carry on any sort of conversation at all. She didn't have any idea how one might make friends with an owl, even if one wanted to.

"A friend, eh?" the wizard said, looking impressed. "Well, then! If you see a friend here, then please, let me know and we shall see that you may take good care of him or her."

"Actually, I think I might have heard one of them call me so earlier, but they're both being very quiet now," Rose admitted, glancing back into the aquarium mentioned. The others all seemed nice, but sounded content to stay in the shop at present.

"Hm, they do tend to be a bit shy at times," the wizarding man admitted. "Perhaps introductions are in order?"

And so the shopkeeper introduced Rose to the African and the American, and discussed how long they would both live, how large they would get, what things they liked to eat, and their general temperments.

Rose, in turn, addressed the snakes and told them the same.

"--and I suppose ice cream is all right, but I think sausages are grand with tea and biscuits, and I suppose my temperment is only so-so. I'm angry most of the time, but I don't like to snap out at others much either. I think it's easier to keep one's temper unless things get to be just too much, too, except I suppose it's causing me trouble with my accidental magic jumping out all out of sorts when I do so," she ended, speaking just as candidly about herself as the wizard had seemed to be about the two of them.

She glanced up at the shopkeeper once she'd finished, and saw his eyes gleaming. "So," he said. "Now that you've been properly introducced, I think perhapss I sshall leave you alone for a sshort while to get to know each other a little bit better."

And with that he glided away.

Rose turned back to the aquarium. "I may have done thiss a little backwardss," she admitted. "My name iss Rose."

"Hello, Rose," the American said shyly, so quiet that Rose barely heard her.

"Hsss, issss that ssssso?" said the African, sounding amused, and Rose recognized the voice from before immediately.

"May I ask your names?" Rose asked politely.

"I am Hrrrrsssshthra," said the African. "This is Shhhstha, but it'sssss hardly polite to introducccce one'sssss meal."

"Meal?" Rose said, eyes widening.

The African laughed at her. "Lisellict did tell you I like to eat ssssnakesssss, did he not?"

"But..." Rose frowned, confused, as Hrrrrsssshthra continued to laugh and the other snake curled up in embarrassment.

"Ah, ah, don't fret, Rose," Hrrrrsssshthra said, as he calmed his hissing laughter. "I have eaten sssssomething elsssse recccently. It issss why I called you over," he said, with an amused glint in his eye.

Rose tilted her head and wondered what the African was getting at.

"You are going to Hogartsssss sssssoon I hear?" the African said.

"You want to come with me?" Rose asked uncertainly. "I'm not ssure I will have enough sspace in my room for you, though," she said, feeling worried. "Lisellict--" she realized the shopkeeper was the owner, yet again, and wondered how comon that was here, "he ssaid that you would grow to be quite large." She doubted that she could keep or feed Hrrrrsssshthra at the Durlseys' house on Privet Drive, even in the small bedroom, which was far larger than the cupboard. She also had no idea how large her accommodations would be at Hogwarts -- from the sound of things, it was a year-round boarding school, which was half the reason why she'd bought the bewitched travel trunk. (The other half of the reason was because she liked the idea of having something she could store things in -- witching or otherwise -- that the Durselys couldn't get into, especially now that she had money of her own to buy the things she might need or like.)

Hrrrrsssshthra gave another hissing laugh again. "No, no," he said. "Not me -- her!"

Rose glanced down at Shhhstha, who squirmed quietly in even more embarrassment.

"It would be an honor to go to Hogwarts with you, young witch," Hrrrrsssshthra told her kindly, "but I think thisssss one might be happier with you, and you with her, for now." And with a swaying shrug, he added, "And I would be hard to hide, ssssshould thosssssse wizardsssss think unkindly on my being there with you, issss it not sssssso?"

Rose nodded slowly. She'd _really_ wanted to have a snake-friend with her at Hogwarts -- just one good friend would be enough! -- and the letter had only put a stricture on owls and cats and toads, not snakes... but she knew well from experience that adults would probably be less than swayed by her convincing logical argument if they found out. It would be better to hide her snake-friend as a secret friend, just in case, even if it might be horribly selfish of her to not be able to let her snake-friend socialize with anyone other than herself, for fear of being caught out.

Of course, if the choice was risking discovery at Hogwarts or being eaten...

"Shhhstha, would you like to come with me? As a friend?" she asked, glancing up at Hrrrrsssshthra to make sure he really wasn't going to be upset at the loss of a meal, talking or otherwise.

"Yesssss!!" Shhhstha said, sounding horribly excited. Rose blinked down at her, because that hadn't sounded like someone only trying to get out of being a meal at all. It had sounded more like... she really hadn't _ever_ worried about being eaten.

Rose glanced up at Hrrrrsssshthra, who gave her an encouraging wink, and then she dropped her left hand into the aquarium. Hrrrrsssshthra lounged unconcerned as Shhhstha wound herself around Rose's wrist and sighed happily.

Rose lifted her hand back out and brought it to her chest, sighing happily herself and feeling like all her worries from earlier were meaningless. She had a friend to talk to who was as happy to be with Rose as Rose was to have her. That was enough.

"You weren't _really_ going to eat her, were you?" she murmured quietly to Hrrrrsssshthra with a smile, and got another hissing laugh for her trouble.

And then she jumped as a large hand came down and encompassed her shoulder.

"ROSE!" Hagrid boomed down at her, and she twisted her head up wildly, feeling like panicked prey -- her earlier anger having dissipated on her almost entirely. She tried not to cringe and gulped back a startled cry.

"I was worried about yeh!" he said, and he _sounded_ worried, _looked_ worried, peering down at her. "I thought I'd lost yeh!" he said, letting go of her and wringing his hands together, looking pained.

"I... the snakes..." Rose said, trying to think of how to explain, knowing she was in trouble.

"I, I didn' hear yeh--" he said.

"I shouldn't've wandered off--" she said in the same breath.

They both froze.

Rose steeled herself from the worst, but Hagrid only said, "Wandered--?" sounding confused.

He looked down at her and said in some consternation, "Rose, yeh only had to say! I like all sorts o' animals m'self! We've nothin' left for the day, we could've stopped fer a bit!"

And Rose could do nothing but stand there in shock and astonishment as she realized that Hagrid wasn't angry with her, wasn't going to yell or punish her, and wasn't--

She nearly burst into tears on the spot.

And she nearly laughed through the crying feeling she could no longer contain as Hagrid bustled about her looking _worried_ all over again while tears spilled down her cheeks, and offering up a large clean handkerchief to her.

He patted her shoulder gently many times while glancing around the shop away from her as she dried her eyes, looking horribly uncomfortable, and gruffly said, "Er, well, I didn' mean... I mean, if yeh want to..."

"I... I think I've seen enough of the shop for now, Hagrid," Rose said, managing to quash her last sniffles. "Thank you. I'm sorry I cried," she said, offering the wet hanky back.

He took it and stuffed it in one of his many coat pockets without any reservation whatsoever.

"Yer feelin' better now, though?" Hagrid asked hopefully. "I sometimes feel better m'self, after a good cry," he said, which oddly enough made Rose want to smile.

"Yes..." Rose admitted with a short laugh. "I just... I don't know what's _wrong_ with me, I've been feeling so up and down all day." She felt up and down before, of course, but never so badly so much and so often in just a few hours.

"Ah, well," Hagrid said. "It's not really all tha' uncommon for Muggleborns to-- well, tha' is..." He stopped, sounding embarrassed, then straightened up a bit. "Why don't we head on towards yer home and we'll talk abou' it over a good meal before yeh need to get back," he ended, clapping her on the shoulder lightly, as though he somewhat understood.

As though he'd seen something like this before.

That, in and of itself, helped her to relax immeasurably.

As Hagrid gently guided her towards the front of the shop towards the exit, Rose glanced back over her shoulder at Lisellict, but he merely smiled at her, winked, and gave her a shooing wave to go.

In retrospect, she realized that he'd already told her much of what she needed to know about Shhhstha's habits when he introduced them, and she had a feeling that he'd realized even before the introduction that Shhhstha was going to want to go with her and that they'd be taking good care of each other from now on.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rose and Hagrid made their way back to the wall, and through the Leaky Cauldron -- now empty, thank goodness, Rose was sure she wouldn't have been able to take another mobbing -- along the road to the Underground, and took it to Paddington station.

Rose breathed the slightest sigh of relief at how no-one seemed to be noticing anything odd about her trunk or the owl at all -- the only stares anyone was giving were being sent Hagrid's way, as before.

When they got out into Paddington station proper, Hagrid bought them both hamburgers -- he refused to let Rose buy, motioning for her to put her own money away -- and they sat down in hard plastic chairs at the station and waited for Rose's train back to the Durselys house.

"'m sorry," Rose said, finally breaking the silence.

"Fer what?" Hagrid said, sounding surprised.

"I... I was..." She felt ashamed. "I was so angry before. With just... myself and... everything, and..."

"Angry with...?" Hagid said, sounding concerned. "Fer not knowing you're a witch? Tha' isn't your fault, Rose, yer aunt should've--" he frowned.

"I-- no, I mean..." she struggled to explain. "The Ministry-- you don't like them, either!" she said.

Hagrid frowned in thought. "Yer angry with the Ministry?" he asked.

Rose nodded.

"Why?" he asked, all confusion.

So Rose tried to explain about how she'd felt earlier -- not having a choice about how to learn magic, having to attend Hogwarts, that she had no say in anything if she messed up and did accidental magic, that she wasn't _allowed_ to learn on her own, how she was afraid of what 'they' might do to her if she tried, that these nebulous people who she didn't know anything about could sit in judgment over her and ruin her life for something she didn't mean to mess up...

"--I don't know the rules," she ended. "I don't know what the consequences are," because Hagrid wouldn't tell her, which had made her furious earlier, "and it's like... getting muscle cramps or something. I can't _not_ do magic accidentally, I don't know how not to, and I _don't_ like the idea of these people doing whatever they want to me when it's not my fault, and they know that, and I wouldn't if I knew how not to, and they ought to know that, too!" she said, nearly in tears all over again.

Shhhstha seemed to pick up on her frustration and fear and hissed soothing words to her. Rose set her hamburger in her lap and slowly curled her fingers around her snake-friend, curled in turn around her left wrist.

Hagrid sat and listened to her, everything she said, and when she was done, he sighed deeply and lay a large gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Rose..." he said sadly. "I didn' think..." He sighed. "I didn' want to scare yeh, Rose," he said, "but yer scaring yerself worse than anythin' that's done." He frowned. "And yer makin' the Ministry sound like it's all unreasonable-actin' and unfair like those Muggle relatives of yours."

"...What?" she said, looking up at him, wide-eyed. "But-- but that's not-- it's not the same at all!" ...Was it?

And then she remembered that her aunt and uncle _had_ known she was a witch, and her aunt had grown up with her mother. Her aunt must've known she was doing her accidental magic... accidentally. And they'd never said anything to her about it. She felt herself go pale.

But then she realized that they'd also tried to not have her do it in front of other Muggles, even more than themselves -- she'd gotten the worst punishments when that had happened.

She felt herself go even paler.

"Hagrid," she said hoarsely. "What happens to Muggles if they're part of a family with a witch who does accidental magic that other Muggle see, and they can't stop it? Do they get in trouble, too?"

Hagrid grimaced, and then told her about Obliviation spells.

"The Ministry don' use them on Muggle family members who keep the Wizarding world a secret, though," Hagrid said. "And nobody should get in trouble for you doin' accidental magic before Hogwarts, not you, not the Dursleys, though they'd certainly deserve sommat," he said, though it sounded sour in his mouth when he brought up her Muggle relatives.

"I think mebbe it'd be best if I told yeh what happens if yeh do magic in front of Muggles, an' outside school, an' the like," Hagrid said. "All right?"

Rose took in a deep, shaky breath and steeled herself.

"Yes, _please_ ," she pleaded.

"Magic is dangerous," Hagrid began. "It isn' somethin' yer goin' to be able to learn to control or to cast with yer wand on your own. Nobody can. That's why there's Hogwarts."

And he proceeded to explain that magic was difficult to master, and everyone in Britain had to attend a magic school if they were a witch or wizard for that reason, and Hogwarts was the only magic school in Britain. He explained how there needed to be adults around to fix things or undo spells or potions if they went awry, or take a body to the hospital if something went terribly wrong.

He explained how the underage magic laws were the way they were not just because of the Secrecy Statute, but for the students' own protection. --They shouldn't be performing or practicing magic outside of school because if they tried something without a wizarding adult around and messed it up...

And then he explained that if magic was done outside of school, then students usually received a warning letter, and that was it. If there were a lot of warning letters, or if the magic was done in front of a Muggle, then depending on how bad the offense was, they either received a warning, a disciplinary hearing, or possibly expulsion, depending on the spell and the circumstances. Self-defense for the benefit of the underage wizard casting the spell or to save the lives of nearby Muggles was usually considered a mitigating factor. So was being told to do so by an authority figure, such as a Ministry or school official.

Performing magic in front of family behind closed doors outside of school was frowned upon, but didn't normally merit immediate expulsion from the school -- only warnings. Things got more sticky if the magic was being cast in the Muggle world instead of the wizarding one, especially if the magic was cast out-of-doors -- making explusion more likely.

Accidental magic -- magic _without a wand_ \-- even after admission to Hogwarts, generally was still given a free pass under the statutes in the first three years or so. (Rose breathed a sigh of relief over that.)

Expulsion from Hogwarts was apparently the worst punishment for students that could be given, outside of an adult punishment, and Hagrid wouldn't explain what those were, only that Rose couldn't be considered an adult until she was seventeen regardless, so she really didn't have to worry about any of that yet. Expulsion meant being removed from school permanently, being forbidden from practicing magic any further, and having one's wand confiscated and destroyed by the Ministry.

Besides breaking the statutes, the only other time a student could be expelled was by breaking the school rules in such a way that other people were injured badly, or worse.

...And now Rose understood why Hagrid hadn't wanted to talk about it -- he'd broken one of these rules in his third year of Hogwarts, and hadn't wanted to admit it.

Her head was spinning a bit as she took all this in.

"So, technically, if I managed to get through school without being expelled and turned seventeen, I could do whatever magic I wanted, no restrictions?" she asked.

"Well, I suppose so," Hagrid said with a grimace, "but yeh wouldn' get a very good job if yeh didn' do well on yer O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s." Hagrid smiled down at her. "But if yeh study hard, yeh'll do fine, I think."

Rose assumed those were like placement tests in the wizarding world.

"But what if I want to get a Muggle job, instead?" she asked.

Hagrid just blinked at her.

"Muggle job?" he asked, frowning.

"Well, yes," Rose said. "If I did well on my tests--"

"Those are fer gettin' a good wizarding job, not a Muggle one," Hagrid said, looking at her.

And then Rose realized, if she took classes at Hogwarts--

"Hagrid," she asked carefully. "Are _all_ of the classes at Hogwarts magic classes?"

"O' course!" Hagrid said. "An' Hogwarts is the best wizarding school in the world," he said with pride. "I suppose yeh could take a Muggle Studies class if yeh wanted," he offered, "but yeh probably know all tha' stuff already."

 _Oh. Oh no,_ Rose thought. If she went to Hogwarts, she'd get her accidental magic under control, presumably, and if she got through school okay she'd no longer be at risk of whatever penalties the secrecy act could hit her with as an adult later in life so long as she was careful not to cast spells around Muggles, but...

...she'd never be able to live a normal life. Those magic classes she'd be taking would be instead of the regular ones she'd take at someplace like Stonewall High. The placement tests would be different, too. If she got through Hogwarts all right and then decided to live in the Muggle world, she'd have no proper background education or placement tests to back her up. She wouldn't be able to get a good job here, if she could get a job at all, and certainly no other higher education college would have her.

"I don't suppose there's any wizarding school you know of that does both," Rose said, dreading that she knew the answer already. "Magic classes and regular Muggle ones, so a wizard or witch could work in either world if they wanted.

By the dumbfounded, slightly blank look she got, she assumed not.

...This was all giving her a headache.

But there was one more thing she had to ask.

"Hagrid," she said. "Do you think Voldemort was right to take on the Ministry?"

Hagrid stared at her agog.

"Rose!" he said, looking alarmed, then looked angrily away. "I knew nothin' good would come of yer talkin' with that snake," he muttered.

"What?" Rose said, startled, her fingers curling around Shhhstha defensively.

"Tha' Malfoy boy," he said. "His father was a Death Eater, worked fer You-Know-Who during the Wizarding War -- what lies did he tell yeh?" he asked, looking frustrated but determined.

"I... what?" Rose said, then relaxed a bit. "He didn't tell me anything. It didn't come up."

Hagrid stared at her, and Rose said, feeling more than a little frustrated herself, "You said that he got a bunch of power, and killed people who got in his way, and fought Dumbledore, and killed my parents." She took a breath, looked Hagrid right in the eye, and added, "Ollivander said he'd tried to overthrow the Ministry.Neither of you said you thought he was wrong to try."

Hagrid looked absolutely _horrified_ , then clenched his jaw.

"Rose, You-Know-Who -- the Dark Lord -- was wrong. Evil. He needed ter be stopped. An' don't yeh ever think otherwise. He was killin' good people, and the Ministry stepped in ter try ter stop him. He wasn't tryin' ter overthrow the statutes of secrecy, or anythin' like that, he was just wantin' to kill an' kill an' kill," Hagrid told her grimly. "He killed a lot of good Muggleborns, an' a heap of Muggles who'd never hurt a fly, an' he said he was tryin' ter purge wizardkind of everyone but the purebloods, but there were a lot of good pureblood fam'lies that stood up ter him and he just killed them, too, fer the spite of it."

He looked frustrated and said, "The Ministry has rules, says that yeh can't use killin' curses, they're Unforgivables. Get you locked away in Azkaban, no excuses. Took them forever to repeal that for the Aurors -- er, magic constables," he said quickly, "an' a lot of good people would still be alive if they'd done it sooner." He frowned. "The Ministry isn't all bad, not hardly a little. They didn' want ter do something that'd have people dyin' like that at our hands, not even You-Know-Who's lot." He looked down at her plaintively. "You understand?"

"They could be better, they screw things up, but they're not out to try and hurt people or... try to be unreasonable?" Rose said slowly, and Hagrid nodded in relief, patting her on the head.

Rose sighed and picked up her burger again to finish eating it.

They ate in companionable silence for a minute or so, until Hagrid said, "...Though I don' know how yeh could think You-Know-Who was right in killin' yer parents, and tryin' ter kill you," glancing down at her, concerned and worried all over again.

Rose blinked up at him. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. "My relatives used to say they were good-for-nothing," she explained. "I thought, if Vol-- if You-Know-Who wasn't actually... I mean, I know it's bad to kill people, but if my parents were... bad and... on the wrong side..."

"Rose, yeh were just a baby, and yer parents were two of the finest wizards I've ever known!" Hagrid objected. "They weren't bad, and they weren't on the wrong side, yeh understand me?" he said firmly. "Non of yeh deserved ter have him after yeh, tryin' ter kil yeh. An' don't yeh let _anyone_ try an' tell yeh otherwise, yeh hear me?" he said, poking her in the shoulder.

Rose bit her lip. "Yessir," she said, feeling really strange. She was usually on the opposite side of this argument with the Durselys, wanting to believe that her parents weren't bad and trying to defend them despite not really knowing.

"...But are you sure he was trying to kill me?" Rose asked tentatively. "It just seems so..." She pulled a face. "Even you said it sounds crazy that I could've... stopped him somehow, and he might even still be alive."

"He was," Hagrid said in a low rumble. "I can't tell yeh how I know in particular, except ter say tha' Dumbledore told me so, an' it's the truth," he told her.

Rose found that odd, because that sounded pretty particular to her, at least.

She frowned down at the last small remains of her burger. "I don't really like the idea of being famous, and I like the idea of being famous for something I probably didn't even do even less." And, if it involved killing someone without even realizing it, very _especially_ not. "I don't like all the attention, and I feel... _weird_ being told I'm special and that people expect great things and all that. Like it's wrong somehow," she frowned up at him. "I already feel like I don't fit in with Muggles, Hagrid," she admitted. "What if I don't fit in with wizarding folk, either?" _What if they don't let me?_ "What if I can't learn proper magic? What if I keep having accidents and can't stop?"

But Hagrid just gave her a kindly smile and said, "Don' you worry, Rose. You'll learn fast enough. Everybody starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. Just be yerself. I know it's hard. Yeh've been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll have a great time at Hogwarts -- I did -- still do, 'matter of fact," he told her.

"I've seen a lot of Muggleborns come through Hogwarts, Rose," he told her. "Sometimes I help take 'em to Diagon Alley, like you today." He paused. "Sometimes they seem a lot more excited about all the magic and such, and not a thing worries them at all. But sometimes they do," he said, looking down at her. "Sometimes it's a big shock, and they worry and have all sorts of questions," he told her.

Then he looked thoughtful for a moment. "But yeh seem a bit angry and a bit scared much, more than any I've seen before. Mebbe it's somethin' to do with You-Know-Who and yer parents, or maybe the Dursleys," he said. "But Rose, you've got friends yeh don't even know about," he told her encouragingly, "I promise yeh that. We'll look out fer yeh, and you'll be makin' even more friends at Hogwarts soon enough," he smiled at her. "An' if somethin' gets ter you and yer feelin' down, well, yeh can always come see me, all right?"

Rose felt a little startled at the offer, but nodded up at the giant man with a tentative smile.

"Thank you," she told him, and got a big grin and another pat on the head for it.

And with that, Rose finally relaxed a bit and let her hands drop to her lap. Shhhstha unwound from her wrist a little, tasting the air by her burger, and Rose laughed quietly under her breath.

"Eh?' said Hagrid. "What's that then?"

Rose winced, but she remained still as Hagrid reached out and very gently held her wrist in his hands.

"A snake?" he said, sounding surprised. "Where you get this one, Rose?"

"Ssssss? What?" Shhhstha said, recoiling a little away from Hagrid's questing fingers and trying to hide back down her sleeve. "Bad wizard? Sssssshould I bite?"

"No, no, Hagrid iss not bad," Rose soothed her, pulling her arm away from Hagrid slowly.

"...Rose?" Hagrid asked her, eyes widening.

"It's fine, Shhhstha's just a bit shy," she told Hagrid. She took a bit of the burger meat and held it up to her wrist for her snake-friend to snap up, then stroked the top of her head soothingly after.

"Rose, you speak... Did you understand that snake?" Hagrid asked.

"Of course," said Rose, frowning up at him. "Why? Can't you?"

~*~*~*~*~*~

When Hagrid had finished explaining about Parseltongue to her and how rare it was among wizards, and the resulting discussion of different Hogwarts houses and Slytherin in particular -- Parselmouths and liking snakes apparently being very Slytherin things -- they both realized that Rose had missed her train by a good bit, and they had to get up and exchange her ticket for the next train out, with no small embarrassment at the ticketing window.

So they sat down again to wait a bit longer, and Rose found to her surprise that she didn't really mind Hagrid's company, actually. She got the feeling, again, that she'd misjudged him horribly. He'd really been very patient with her, and not gotten angry with _her_ at all -- not even once -- and she was having trouble thinking on why she'd been so afraid of his temper before, and been so mad with him in the first place.

She apologized to him about holding him up from getting back to Hogwarts, and he told her all big and blustery that he didn't mind one bit, and it wasn't a bother.

He did hem and haw over her having taken Shhhstha from the store until Rose explained about the introductions and everything, and then hemmed and hawwed again over her bringing both an owl and a snake to Hogwarts with her.

"I've seen some young witches and wizards bring rats and the like before," Hagrid said. "Usually it's only the one."

But apparently he had a soft spot for pets and sentient friends, because soon enough he was telling her about his own menagerie, and giving her "Yeh didn't hear this from me, but--" tips on how she might be able to keep Shhhstha with her with none the wiser.

He figured that, rightly enough, if Rose could keep Shhhstha under wraps for at least three or four months into the school year with no difficulty, that if anyone found out about her later then she'd have a good basis for saying that she could have Shhhstha and her owl about with no problems, and they'd likely let the small breach of school policy go without any bother. It helped that she wasn't poisonous.

If there was a problem though, Hagrid offered to let Shhhstha stay with him in his hut until the school year was out, and Rose would be welcome to visit her anytime, of course. He gave her the idea of slipping Shhhstha into a shirt pocket, as she'd like the warmth, be unlikely to be squashed as she might be in a waist-level pocket or so, and wouldn't be tired out from having to hold herself tightly around Rose's wrist all day as she did things. Rose talked it over with her snake on the spot, and as Shhhstha getting sleepy, she opted to try it out right then, slipping into the small pocket well-sewn on and curling up over Rose's heart.

Rose was very tired and feeling all worn out by the time the next train arrived, and as Hagrid helped her up onto the train she was very glad that her trunk could move itself about without her needing to drag it along.

"Jus' one more thing, Rose," he said, handing her an envelope. "Yer ticket fer Hogwarts. First o' September -- King's Cross -- it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me... See yeh soon, Rose."

Rose gave him a smile, and then bit her lip and gave him a hug.

He looked surprised, but happy, and he hugged her back before getting back off the train.

As the train pulled out of the station, Rose turned to look out the window to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight. But between one blink and the next, she saw him standing there smiling, and then he was gone.

The train ride progressed without trouble, and she got herself back to 4 Privet Drive just fine. The Durselys were already back by the time she stepped onto the porch and knocked, with her trunk and sleepy owl behind her.

When she'd finished getting grumble-ranted at by her Uncle and stared at by her Aunt, she climbed the stairs up to the smallest bedroom -- her room, now, which she shouldn't forget -- and settled her trunk in the corner, glad that she'd cleaned up all of Dudley's old broken junk when she'd first moved in.

She locked her bewitched money pouch in the fourth compartment of her trunk so she wouldn't have to worry about the Dursleys getting at it. She quietly prodded Shhhstha out of her pocket and into a small 'nest' she made out of a soft terrycloth washcloth for her, then changed into her nightclothes and got ready for bed.

But as she climbed into bed, she paused before she turned off the light. Instead, suddenly curious all-at-once, she retrieved the envelope Hagrid had given her, opened it up, and sat back on her bed to read it.

She sighed as she rifled through the contents, which really weren't much -- just one mundane-seeming ticket, and nothing else... until she read it.

She was holding a ticket for Platform _nine-and-three-quarters_ at King's Cross station in her hand.

She had no idea where that was. Platforms were all whole numbers, after all.

She also had no instructions for how to get there. She checked the envelope twice, and read the front and the back of the ticket carefully.

And then she realized what the problem with Hagrid had really been all along.

Hagrid was just a little bit forgetful at times, and a little bit inattentive at others.

She curled up on her bed and laughed 'til she cried, until the pounding on her door had her stifling her laughter into her pillow instead.

Though she had one bloody hell of a time trying to explain the joke to her snake, after.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, writing progress is gonna be slower from here on in. I'll be trying to post still, but as an FYI, you should probably expect much shorter chapters a few days apart and not much more or faster than that, sorry ^_^;;


	6. Chapter 6

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rose woke the next morning, put on her glasses, and sighed as she looked over at Shhhstha dozing in her terrycloth washcloth bed, and then farther to the snowy white owl in its cage.

"Bother," she said under her breath. She had no idea what owls ate besides fieldmice, and she wasn't about to go around trying to catch them for the beastly bird.

"Don't suppose you can understand me," Rose asked quietly, shoving herself over closer to the edge of her bed and wrapping her arms around her legs.

The owl softly hooted at her.

Rose blinked at it.

"You can understand me?" Rose said, tilting her head at it. The owl stared at her for a bit, then bobbed its head up and down.

"Right..." she said quietly. She was talking to a bloody bird. Wonderful.

"All right, then. Look, you," Rose said quietly. "I like snakes, all right? Not... birds, so much," she said truthfuly. "I've honestly no idea what to do with you. ...But I'm not going to be catching your dinner for you, understand? You'll have to catch it yourself."

The bird cocked its head and blinked at her, then fluffed its feathers up.

That had _almost_ seemed reproachful. Maybe.

Rose took a deep breath. "Shhhstha's a good friend of mine, and you're not allowed to eat her," she continued. "That's her over there. No eating her or trying to eat her, no snapping at her, no grabbing her and flying her about or otherwise scaring or hurting her, understand?"

The owl turned its head towards the snake, then turned away and started preening its feathers unconcernedly.

"That had better be a 'yes,'" Rose muttered.

"Right," she said finally, after staring at the bird for awhile. "I might have letters for you once in awhile... actually, I may have one or two for you later today," she said after a bit of thought. "But I don't think I'll be overworking you. You... um, stay in your cage and look sleepy or something if you think I am," Rose said, not wanting to be an abuser of animals, not even a stupid bird. "You'll catch your own dinner and get along with Shhhstha and not mess up my room with birdshite, and we'll get along fine, I think." She thought a little longer. "And you can sleep in here during the night and I'll find a way to take care of you or some such if you get sick," she ended, thinking that just about covered everything.

"We have an accord?" she asked, bending down in front of the cage, staring in.

The owl blinked back at her.

"Right," she said quietly. "I'm going to open the cage now, so don't go all... acting all barmy or anything."

And Rose reached out and carefully unlocked, then opened the cage door.

She moved back abruptly on the bed as the bird fluffed its wings up, nearly flapping them out to hit the sides of the cage.

And then Rose watched as the owl shot out of the cage, circled the room...

...and came to a wing-fluttering landing on the corner of her bed in front of her with a light 'thump'.

It fluffed its wings up, then settled, then turned its head to look up at her.

"Um, hi," said Rose, a little uneasily.

It fluffed up its feathers and bobbed its head at her slightly, again.

"I don't know what that means..." Rose said. "I only sspeak Parsseltongue, not Bloody Bird."

"Hssssmmmm?" Rose heard from the bedside table, and felt a little relieved to see Shhhstha up and about, poking her head up from her terrycloth bed.

"Ahhh, Rose," Shhhstha sighed happily. "You are not jusssst a sssssweet dream. You are real!" she said, perking up.

Rose laughed a little, softly but giddily. "You, too," she said, scooting back and picking up Shhhstha as she slithered up into her palms.

"Oh!" Rose exclaimed, flinching back a bit and cupping her hands full of Shhhstha protectively towards her chest as the bird hopped towards her on the bed and fluffed its feathers up again, before coming to a stop, staring up at her.

"Ah!" said Shhhstha, slithering up over her fingers and looking down at the owl with no fear whatsoever. "Your pet issss awake!"

"Um, yess," said Rose, feeling a little bashful all of a sudden. "Can you speak owl?"

"Sssss?" Shhhstha said, sounding confused. "Owlsssss don't talk?"

"Ah," Rose said, blushing. "Been talking to mysself then."

"Hss? Owlssss don't talk, Rose, but they lisssten well if they are well-trained," Shhhstha explained, then curled up a little in slight embarrassment. "At leasssst, that isss what the otherssss sssaid, in the sssshop."

"That'ss more than I know then," Rose admitted easily.

"Hsssm," said Shhhstha, sounding reflective as she looked the owl over. "Looksss well-trained, but not too much sssso, I think," the young American snake said. "Well-behaved? Well-behaved. Hasss ssssome personality? It isss not bad, maybe."

The owl fluffed its feathers up again.

"I'm trying to determine employment issssuess," Rose said, and Shhhstha giggle-hissed at her.

"Isssss a pet, Rose! You take care of petssss, that isss all," she said, carefully and gently winding herself upwards around Rose's right thumb.

"Well, that one of Hagrid'ss took a coin, once," Rose said, belatedly remembering.

"Ss?" Shhhstha said. "How odd. Explain?"

So Rose told Shhhstha about the newspaper and wanting the coin.

"Ah," Shhhstha said, curling up comfortably. "That was not hisss bird, I think. Lisellict sssometimesss received a morning paper from a bird, and the coin wassss for the paper, not the bird."

"Oh," Rose said, reflecting on this.

Shhhstha squirmed a little, and Rose glanced down and said, "Are you all right?"

"Yesss," Shhhstha said. "But..."

"But?" Rose prompted after a long silence.

"I assssked him!" Shhhstha said, and it sounded like a confession of some sort.

Rose frowned slightly. "Ok...?"

"I..." Shhhstha sqiurmed a little in agitation. "I ask many quessstionsss. I like to know thingsss!" she said, sounding forlorn and apologetic. "I ssshould have ssssaid before!"

Oh. _Oh_. Rose knew _exactly_ how Shhhstha felt.

"It iss not bad to want to know thingss," Rose told Shhhstha. "I feel the ssame way!"

"Yessss?" Shhhstha said, her head raising up a bit, sounding horribly hopeful but still unsure.

" _Yess_ ," Rose said firmly. "But we may not be able to assk questionss all the time. Ssometimess people do not like quesstionss, or otherss do not want to ssay, though ssome do," Rose informed her from personal experience. The witches and wizards she'd met had really been the first ones to be happy to explain things to her heart's content, though -- her teachers at school, not so much. She'd learned early on to only ask questions there about the things she really wanted to know about or really didn't understand for some reason -- anything more was generally thought of as pestering or brown-nosing and quickly became trouble.

"You may not be able to assk quesstionss when we are in classss, becausse other witchess and wizardss might hear you and we need to not get caught," Rose cautioned, "But when we are alone, you can assk all the quesstionss you want, and we can sstudy my booksss and find out together, all right?"

"!!!" Shhhstha exclaimed. "I like reading!" Shhhstha enthused, curling and uncurling excitedly, and Rose laughed and said, "Sso do I!" and stroked her head, happy she had a friend as interested in reading and hearing about interesting things as she was.

And, looking on Shhhstha's great enthusiasm at learning, Rose suddenly got the feeling that Shhhstha might like Hogwarts as much, if not more, than she might herself. She smiled a little ruefully at the thought. The older African had been more than right in his suggestion.

"Well, ssince you know more about wizarding owlss than I do..." Rose began, and then she explained what she'd told the bird earlier.

"Can you think of anything elsse I may have missssed?" Rose asked anxiously.

"Sss," Shhhstha said quietly, swaying slightly as she thought rather intensely on the matter.

"Name," Shhhstha said suddenly, lifting her head again. "Bird needssss a name. And they like sssscratchessss, the tame onessss. Issss like petting a cat. Rose should treat the bird asss a pet, like a cat. Ssssmart, but not too sssmart," Shhhstha said. "Like sssome independence, like flying and not being caged up too long, like all sssmart petssss. You sssshould not be afraid of her," Shhhstha said brightly. "Sssshoulder for me?" she asked.

Rose raised her hands carefully to her shoulder, and Shhhstha curled up over her and balanced carefully.

"Ok," Shhhstha said. "Ssscratchesss. Top of head, maybe under chin? Tell bird you will name her sssssoon?" Shhhstha recommended, sounding just as curious to see the bird's reaction as Rose was slowly becoming over it.

"Ok," Rose said quietly, then told the bird. "I'm going to come up with a name for you soon, and Shhhstha said you might like scratches, so..." Rose stretched her hand out slowly in front of her.

The bird hopped forward tamely and fluffed its feathers again, and Rose began scritching it about the top of its head, gently.

When the owl hooted and blinked its eyes closed in obvious pleasure, Rose grinned and relaxed, getting into petting her silly bird-pet.

"You're not so bad at all," Rose murmured as she petted the bird, that really wasn't filthy like people always talked about with crows and pidgeons and such, and wondered if everyone and everything she met would be like this -- an uneasy meeting at first, until everything was just fine -- Hagrid, and Draco, and now the-- _her_ pet owl.

Maybe it was only so easy to make new friends with snakes, to feel so comfortable from the start.

Well, maybe she'd get better at it with everybody else, someday.

She'd be going to a new school, maybe she'd even have a chance at it.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YMMV a _lot_ on this one. Rose should be somewhat more calm after this, I swear. I blame this a bit on Rose being (and looking) a lot more like her mother than her father ;)
> 
> ...I don't think I've mentioned it specifically yet, but Rose has unruly _red_ hair and _hazel_ eyes. *g*
> 
> (Yes, I'm aware that it's probably pretty unlikely that James Potter had a recessive gene for red hair given all those dark-haired men in his family, just go with it :-P )

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rose opened the window to let her pet owl out, and it flew out rather abruptly -- Rose found herself hoping it would come back rather than take it as an opportunity to escape, oddly enough... -- and set Shhhstha down long enough to get dressed.

She realized that besides the one she'd been wearing the day before, she didn't have any other shirts with front pockets on them. She found herself having to open up her bewitched travel chest, pull out the basic needle-and-thread kit she'd bought from Madam Malkin, and scrounge under her 'new' bed for her set of cloth scraps that she'd bundled up from the last time her Aunt had given her clothing she was allowed to use for herself.

Compared to what she'd seen at the witch's store, her small bundle of worn fabric was downright pitiful.

Rose didn't particularly want to use her witch robe cloth for a regular Muggle shirt, though. She also didn't want to have to explain where she'd gotten the cloth from to her relatives. Her aunt had got in enough of a snit when she'd tried to do herself up in properly-fitting clothing the last time that she'd never dared try to make herself look like the other girls in school again. She didn't want to think what would happen if Aunt Petunia found out about the promise she'd made the Madam.

She took her shirt off again, selected a somewhat square-shaped bit of cloth, and used the new, sharp scissors on it to trim it just a bit -- it slid through the fabric like a dream, she hardly had to snip the scissors closed on the material! She did up her new thread on her new needle -- the extent of which she allowed herself a luxury in the actual design for now -- got a thimble on her thumb -- oh sweet heaven! no more prickings for her! no, ma'am! -- and with the proper sort of unfocused concentration, quickly sewed a pocket up onto the front of it.

When she was done, she put the needle and thimble back in the small kit, shook herself slightly, and blinked down at the shirt. When she realized how little time it had taken her, she nearly laughed at how horribly easy it had been to do, now that she had the right tools for the job.

But the feeling of laughter thinned out to be replaced by a dangerous wave of anger that rose up and threatened to engulf her as she realized that if her aunt had just given her the proper supplies _years_ ago--

She shivered with rage, fists clenching in the shirt fabric, and squeezed her eyes shut, hissing.

"...Rose?" she heard faintly.

She slowly cracked open her eyes and through the dark black haze focused on her little snake-friend, who had risen up to look up at her with concern and worry.

Worry _about_ her. Worry _for_ her.

Rose collapsed on the bed and broke down sobbing for awhile.

"Ssorry," Rose whispered shakily, as Shhhstha hissed her concern, slithering forward to tangle herself in Rose's fingers, up her bare wrist. "Ssorry."

"Rose? You are ok?" Shhhstha said. "You are ok now?"

"Yess. No. I--" Rose sniffled and rubbed her eyes into the blanket. "Got angry. Helped that you were here. Thank you."

"Ss? What did I do?" Shhhstha said. "Wasss my fault?" She sounded shocked, worried, and sorry.

"No!" Rose exclaimed. "No! Not you -- me, I--" She wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand and shook her head. "I get angry, ssometimess."

"Everyone getssss angry ssssometimessss?" Shhhstha said, sounding confused.

"Maybe. Not like thiss, maybe," Rose said quietly, following Shhhstha's motion around her fingers. "I--" She gulped. "I don't like feeling like thiss."

"Then be happy insssstead?"

Rose laughed weakly at that. "That'ss harder than it ssounds, Shhhstha," she told her friend.

"Ssss. Being human-witch issss hard," her snake friend agreed.

"Ssometimess," Rose laughed quietly. She put her hand down so Shhhstha could slither back off onto the bed.

But Shhhstha didn't do so immediately. Instead, she turned her head back to Rose and said, "Ok now?" 

"Yess," Rose said. "Ok now." For now.

Shhhstha slithered down reluctantly, but waited patiently while Rose put on her shirt.

Rose slid her snake-friend into the newly-sewn-on front pocket over her heart, and sighed a little as Shhhstha hissed quietly, soothingly to her.

"You need to be quiet when we go downstairs, all right?" Rose murmured to her. "No matter what. The Dursleys won't let me keep you if they see you," Rose warned her, worried more that they'd scream bloody murder and _kill_ her if they saw her, in truth.

Shhhstha hissed her a sleepy agreement, settling in to the warmth at her breast.

Rose took another few shaky breaths, in and out, and then finished drying her eyes and put the sewing kit away.

She stored the scraps in her trunk for good measure, along with the other odds and ends she had usually worried about the Dursleys getting into and throwing out.

There weren't very many of them.

She closed the trunk, then thought the better of it and reopened it on the fourth compartment again, and pulled out her money pouch.

She thought for a bit, and then decidedly only pulled out a handful of pounds and locked the money pouch back away again. Worst-case, if Dudley jumped her, he'd only get a small bit of her money, rather than all of it.

Not that he'd jumped her for money ever before -- she'd never had any before for him to shove her down and take off of her person.

She'd have to be careful to not let him know she had it on her, which probably ought to be easy enough by not pulling it out in front of him and not letting him see whatever she bought with it.

...Hmmm.

She glanced around, then grabbed her old school bookbag. She emptied the contents out onto her bed -- they weren't much -- and determined that she'd worry about deciding what she'd store in the trunk and bring with her later. She wasn't entirely sure that notebooks full of Muggle knowledge would do her much good at Hogwarts, other than remind her of what she _wasn't_ doing that maybe she should be, given what Hagrid had said about a fundamental lack of the usual Muggle coursework at the wizarding school.

She shouldered her bookbag -- worn, but patched, so nothing would be seen through from the outside without ripping it open, and probably secure enough for the summer since Dudley had never really expressed interest in her books or work before when there were no assignments to lift off of her -- and then opened the door to her room and walked out.

She carefully closed it behind her and quietly made her way downstairs, remembering not to trudge as she went, ladies not meant to be stomping all over the place.

She made her way into the kitchen for breakfast, unshouldered her bag and plopped it down by the doorway, and sat down at the table next to Dudley with a sigh.

Dudley had glanced over at her as she pulled the chair out. As she sat down, he did a double-take, and _shrieked_. He fell out of his chair sideways, away from her, scrambled upright, and raced out the door into the living room.

Rose stared after him and listened to the elephant stomping of feet up the stairs, down the hallway, into a room, and the slam of a door.

...Dudley was hiding in his bedroom?

From _her?_

Rose turned and looked at her aunt and uncle.

"What was _that_ all about?" she asked them.

Silence.

...No, worse than silence. They were actively _ignoring_ her. Her aunt was puttering about the kitchen at the stove, while her uncle was reading the newspaper. A feeling of tension in the air, half-terror and half-fury, was palpable.

Rose frowned. Sure, she'd broken the ladies-are-seen-not-heard rule before, and the don't-speak-unless-spoken-to rule as well, but those violations usually ended in a rather loud lecture, not a very thorough and complete cold shoulder, with whatever else this was.

"...Did something happen after Hagrid took me off that island?" she asked cautiously. "Did someone else from Magical Britain come by?" she added with a little dread as the thought occurred to her.

Dead silence.

Well, now Rose was feeling a little annoyed. She reached out and grabbed a piece of toast, and bit into it. She chewed for awhile, finished it off, and went for another piece as she closely watched her aunt and uncle.

The tension in the room ratcheted up, but nobody said a word. Uncle Vernon just turned a newspaper page, and Aunt Petunia kept cooking at the stove. Hm. So Rose decided to see how much it would take to break it.

She had herself a full breakfast from what was on the table, until she didn't feel like eating anymore. By the time she was done, she wasn't hungry, just like she'd been pleasantly un-hungry by the end of the day-before after those full meals of meat and bread and tea and ice cream.

She hadn't really had dinner the night before, being too tired to do anything after the day-- the _birth_ day she'd had, though she'd eaten a lot more than usual overall, so she'd carefully paced herself in eating.

Even though the tension had hit a new record high, with or without accompanying yelling, they were _still_ ignoring her like she wasn't right there, eating what was normally considered a good portion of Dudley's food.

She stared across the table at the two of them and sat back in her chair, wondering if they were really planning on ignoring her for the rest of the summer. A whole month.

...She'd been locked up in her cupboard for longer before. She wouldn't put it past them.

All right. This was ridiculous. Enough was enough.

Rose took a deep breath and asked, "Did the tail go away?"

Her uncle grunted at her without looking up. Ha! A response! But...

"Is that a yes or a no?" Rose asked, because she honestly couldn't tell.

"No," said her uncle angrily, not even bothering to drop down the top of his newspaper so he could glare over it at her.

Rose sighed.

"Guess he really hadn't tried to undo it after all," Rose muttered unhappily, poking at her plate with a finger. She _hated_ being blamed for things that she couldn't control.

Her aunt and uncle both froze, then looked over at her and stared.

"What?" Aunt Petunia said.

"I asked Hagrid to undo it in the morning before we left," Rose said. "He didn't look like he'd tried very hard, though. I'm sorry I didn't insist," she told her aunt. Because yes, Dudley was a mean little git and liked shoving her into the ground at the drop of a hat when he could, and _yes_ , he'd had it coming...

...but her uncle had been the one waving around the gun, so if anyone had deserved it at the time, it was him, not his piggish son. She was still not happy with Hagrid over that. And if Dudley's earlier reaction had been the end result of it all...

Well, her uncle would've reacted much worse to it if it had been directed at him, but that was hardly a good reason!

Her uncle was openly staring at her like she was some kind of two-headed freakish talking fish. Her aunt's lips pressed into a thin line.

"Living room. Now." her aunt commanded.

Rose grimaced, then slid off of the chair and headed for the other room. She grabbed up and shouldered her bookbag on the way.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Aunt Petunia sat down on the couch, and motioned for Rose to sit next to her, side by side.

Bloody hell, it was going to be one of _those_ discussions.

Fine, whatever. She wasn't ladylike. She got it. She didn't see how _not_ trying to deal with the pig tail attached to Dudley's bum would help matters any. If wanting to do something about it made her less lady-like, then so be it.

She sat down, unshouldered her bookbag and set it down on the floor by her feet, and turned to face her aunt head-on, thinking tiredly but belligerently, _all right, let's have it._

Aunt Petunia looked down at her and said, "Can you undo the spell?"

Rose stared up at her blankly. She could not _possibly_ have said what she just did.

"...What?" Rose said weakly.

Her aunt's lips thinned out again.

" _Can you undo the spell?_ " she snapped peevishly.

Rose twitched.

" _What?!?_ " Rose said.

She reeled backwards a bit, feeling like she'd been slapped.

"You-- I--" Rose felt her eyes go wide. No. No. There was _no way_. She wasn't falling for this. "Uncle Vernon would _kill_ \--"

"You just let me worry about Vernon," her aunt said dangerously. "Now _can_ you or _can't_ you?!" she demanded.

Oh god. Her aunt was _serious_.

Rose stared up at her Aunt Petunia, uncomprehending.

And then Rose's shock suddenly morphed into rage. She was suddenly, inexplicably at the last straw. Rose felt like she was a twisted-up high-tension strand of wire that was at risk of snapping, with a backlash that was going to do something horrible.

"I got my bloody wand _yesterday_ ," Rose started lowly, under her breath. "It hasn't been _twenty-four hours_. I didn't even _know_ I had magic until Hagrid showed up, because _you wouldn't tell me_ , even though you _must have_ known because my mother was a witch, too, and apparently it's _years_ of bloody dangerous practice to do things without accidentally _exploding_ someone in the process, and you're telling me that _you_ want _me_ to try and cast a spell _I don't know_ on your precious _Dudleykins?!?_ " she ended in a quiet shriek that didn't make it out of the living room through years of practice. She felt like she was going halfway out of her mind, if her aunt hadn't already.

Aunt Petunia's eyes narrowed. "Language," she said coldly.

"I will _not_ 'language'! My language is bloody _appropriate_ under the circumstances!" Rose hissed at her.

"If you can't do it, then you could have just said so," her aunt informed her rigidly.

" _No_ , I _couldn't_ ," Rose got out through gritted teeth, shaking with rage that just _wasn't going away_ no matter _how_ hard she tried to push down on it. " _I want an apology_ ," she demanded.

"What?" Her aunt looked startled, then angry herself. "Why in the _world--!_ "

"Because you are _still_ wanting me to do things I can't-- I don't know how to do!" Rose said shakily, remembering her conversation with Hagrid. "You wanted me to stop accidentally doing Freak Things when I didn't even know I had magic, let alone believe any of it was something that was my fault! --And now you want me to do the exact opposite! _On purpose!_ "

"So?" her aunt said, narrowed-eyed.

Rose barely bit back a snarl. "I've _never_ done _any_ of it _on purpose!_ "

"Don't be ridiculous!" her aunt scoffed.

" _I am angry all the time,_ " Rose told her, shaking as it felt like she was twisted and torqued through yet another gruesome inch of strain, and that much closer to losing hold of something essential. "Anger triggers accidental magic. _Accidental_. _Magic_. What part of what Hagrid said did you not hear?" she demanded inanother quiet shriek, her fists clenched in her lap. How could she not have been listening?!

"Your _mother_ never did anything accidentally," Aunt Petunia informed her.

"Well, _clearly_ I am not her!" Rose spat back. "Was _she_ ever so angry she felt like she was about to sick up over it because it wouldn't go away?" Rose informed her, still shaking, and it was all different this time. The angry rage was getting to her, _not going anywhere_ , just cascading around tightly in her chest, and she was feeling so wired and more and more tired--

"Clearly," her aunt confirmed dryly. " _She_ \--" But then her aunt paused, and when she looked down her nose at Rose's upward glare, she seemed to look past it and see something. What, Rose didn't know.

"Get up," her aunt said, standing herself.

"What?" Rose said, and now she was shaking with a kind of fatigue that felt like she'd been running too long, not just shaking from sheer outrage anymore.

Her Aunt Petunia pursued her lips and they turned down in a grim disapproving frown. She grabbed Rose by the arm and hauled her up. She maneuvered Rose over to the front door, opened it, and pulled them both outside onto the front porch.

Rose collapsed on the front stoop as Aunt Petunia lowered herself down.

"Look up," her aunt commanded her.

Rose almost belligerently told her off, having gotten hauled around like that for no reason, but she tilted her head back anyway and looked up at the clear blue sky. Stupid bloody bright shining day with not a cloud in sight.

She was about to ask peevishly what, exactly, she was supposed to _see_ when Aunt Petunia told her, "Close your eyes and put it all up there."

"Put what up where," Rose said dully as her eyes slid shut, feeling twinges inside as she twitched, something about to snap.

"What you're feeling," her aunt said in a neutral tone. There was a pause. "Breathe it all out and paint the sky with it."

Rose really wanted to tell her aunt off, then and there, because what the bloody hell did that mean, anyway? And when did her aunt ever talk like that? And her chest hurt, she was having _trouble_ breathing through the clenching feeling, and... and...

Shhhstha was squirming in her pocket in similar probably-sympathetic discomfort, and Rose could feel her there.

Fine. Fine. Bloody breathe it all out. Right. Stupid, bloody--

Rose tilted her head back and tried to exhale, and it came out a ragged cough. She tried again, and it didn't feel like anything was coming out but air. She cleched her jaw, then unclenched it, and felt a spike of rage and a more familiar sort of anger spiral up and nearly choke her.

She grabbed onto that anger and _grimaced_ as she strangled it back, because she _didn't_ like this feeling and she _wanted it out_.

She breathed out without actually breathing out, the dark, rolling, cold, horrid feeling somehow fountaining straight out of her chest into the sky in her mind's eye.

She gasped out and her eyes shot open, and she half-collapsed as it _all_ spiraled out of her. She stared blankly up at the sky, and it took her a moment to realize she was looking up at a horrible, grey-to-pitch-black, scary-dark thunderstorm, from horizon-to-horizon.

"Now, inside before it starts pouring," her aunt told her thinly, sounding none-too-pleased, like she'd been sucking a lemon. Her aunt got a hand up under her armpit and half-dragged her back into the house as the first big wet raindrops started to hit the ground. In seconds it because a deluge.

Rose, wavering on her feet, stared out at this display in shock as her aunt closed the front door and turned the lock with some odd sort of finality. Like she was locking the rain out. Like she was locking out...

"That was magic," Rose said dazedly. She felt lightheaded, chest no longer constricted, as she looked up at her aunt, who still had a hold of her arm. "You know how to do magic."

Her aunt turned and stared down at her.

"Don't be ridiculous, I didn't do that," her aunt informed her. "You did."

Her aunt dropped her arm and walked back over to the couch, sitting down.

"But ..." Rose felt like everything had gone shaky-sideways. " _You_ knew _how_ ," she said, teetering her way back over to her aunt.

Her aunt looked up at her with an expression that could sour milk.

Something horrible and making almost perfect sense suddenly occurred to Rose. " _Can_ you do magic?" she asked in barely a whisper.

With a suddenly-pinched look, her aunt gestured for her to sit back down on the couch.

Rose tried not to collapse onto it, but she didn't do a very good ladylike job of it.

For some reason, her aunt didn't scold her for it.

"No," her aunt informed her. "I can't."

"But... Hogwarts?" Rose said, feeling a little hollow and dazed still. Had her aunt gone and learned with her mother? But that didn't really make sense...

"No, I did _not_ attend **that school** ," her aunt informed her snippily, like thin ice cracking under too much weight. She looked like she wanted to slap her.

Rose didn't ask any further, not because she realized what a bad idea it would be, but simply because she didn't know what _to_ ask. Rose stared up at her aunt as she pulled out a basket of knitting and handed Rose the yarn skein to hold.

"You won't be going out for a bit, wherever you were thinking of running off to," her aunt told her, as the rain came down outside like it would never let up, and thunder and lightning smashed nearby, over and over again.

Rose sat where she was, staring off into space, holding the yarn and mechanically spooling it off for her aunt as Petunia knitted in silence.

It felt like she was beginning to come out of a mental fog when her aunt said, "Your mother did that once."

Rose's head twisted up towards her aunt so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash, in shock all over again. Her aunt _never_ talked about her mother. Not like--

"She came home one summer, upset over-- over some _boy_ ," Aunt Petunia told her thinly as she focused on her knitting, speaking with more than a little contempt at what Rose guessed she must've thought was a horrible excuse for her mother being out-of-sorts. "It was the only time I'd ever seen her angry for longer than a minute or so. She had a very snapdragon temper. But this time it lasted for weeks on end."

There was the clicking of knitting needles as her aunt worked in silence, and Rose contemplated this for awhile.

"She got rid of it like that," Rose said quietly, realizing. "And told you how."

"No," her aunt said. "She _never_ got over it, the silly--" Her lips thinned and Rose guessed she must have been keeping back a particularly bad insult. "She let out the worst of it, but she never let go."

Rose felt confused, and a little hollow, and just tired, so very tired as she sat there.

"You are an ungrateful child," her aunt told her, and Rose was far too tired to work up the energy to complain, or the anger to sustain it -- not anymore. "We took you in, gave you a home, food and clothing, saw that you're schooled appropriately, and you are 'angry all the time'," her aunt said in a clipped tone.

Her aunt wasn't done, either. "Do you honestly think that anyone else would have put up with you doing Freak Things, if you'd been a ward of the state?" she said primly.

"...No," Rose had to quietly admit. She couldn't really comprehend what that would have been like, but she'd heard horror stories about The System -- anyone who was adopted did. The rumors were frightening, enough to turn somebody's hair white, and that was _without_ the problems of unstable accidental magic thrown in the mix.

She doubted that any wizarding folk would've taken her in, either, because if they would have... well, would Magical Britain really have placed their Girl Who Lived, Defeater of their Dark Lord, with a Muggle family if a Wizarding family had been willing?

...Actually, maybe they would, if as a one-year-old child she had been accidentally going around killing Dark Lords and all. A regular Wizarding family wouldn't stand a chance.

...If she _had_ killed the Dark Lord, might it also have been possible that _she_ had been the one to kill her parents, not him?

Rose closed her eyes and shivered at the sound of a horrible echoing laugh and a scream.

No. If she'd been accidentally killing people at age one, she doubted the Dursleys would have survived nearly this long with her.

She decided she'd much rather believe that _someone_ , perhaps that Headmaster Dumbledore, really knew the truth of things and that Voldemort really had been the one to kill her parents, not her.

...Which of course probably meant that that Dumbledore person had been there, seen everything, and used her and her family as bait, like one of those sting operations that they talked about on the telly, but, well, if the Dark Lord really been murdering that many people for no real reason other than because he wanted to...

That would make a lot more sense, anyway. Voldemort probably wouldn't have believed it wasn't a trap if she hadn't been there, because who would put a baby in danger like that? And maybe Dumbledore had killed Voldemort and blamed it on her instead, for some odd reason. ...Maybe he wasn't an Auror-policeman, and killing Voldemort would have gotten him tossed in a wizarding jail cell? The Wizarding World seemed pretty backwards, what with the medieval-ness and lack of electric-anything. The Ministry also didn't seem to make all that much sense so far, and not very forgiving of mistakes when it came to Muggles and magic. Maybe if they felt the same way about killing using magic, which was admittedly probably a whole new level of horrible...

Rose shook her head slightly, and felt like she was finally beginning to wake up.

She looked up at her aunt, and her aunt looked back.

Then her aunt nodded once, seeming to acknowledge that she was somewhat back in control of herself, and put her knitting away.

" _Now_ ," her Aunt Petunia said primly and rather darkly, thunder rumbling ominously in the background to punctuate the severity of the mood. "Let's talk about your behavior and your language a bit, shall we?"

Rose bit back a groan and steeled herself for needing to give a lot of 'yes ma'am's, 'no, ma'am's, and 'sorry, ma'am's to her aunt for her behavior for the forseeable future.

~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
